In What Direction
by TolkienGirl
Summary: "They walked on, without knowing in what direction. There was too much to be thought, and felt, and said, for attention to any other objects." First comes love, and then comes the rest of their lives–for Eli Bennett and Darcy Williams, nothing about life has ever been simple. [SEQUEL to Fixing on the Hour]
1. in want of a wife

**A/N: I'm delighted to share the beginning of this wild ride with you. Obviously this sequel isn't based on anything but my own thoughts, so if you'd prefer to stick with the more canon** ** _Fixing on the Hour_** **, I totally understand! I'm writing from inspiration here, and we'll see how slowly or quickly that turns to actual plot. Thanks for all your support.**

 **This is going to contain mature topics, just as** ** _FoTH_** **did-I'll be sure to give warnings when necessary.**

 _Chapter 1_

 _"There_ _are_ _such beings in the world, perhaps one in a thousand, as the creature you and I should think perfection, where grace and spirit are united to worth, where the manners are equal to the heart and understanding." – Jane Austen, letter to her niece Fanny Knight_

 _i._

"You can open your eyes now," Bing said, guiding her towards the mirror

Darcy had never been one for gasping. Instead, now, she was perfectly silent. The last time she had worn white—oh, but what did it matter? Never before had there been yards of lustrous silk and tulle. She lifted a hand that barely seemed like her own and reached, almost trembling, to lay her fingers against the strands of her mother's pearls—the only familiar thing she had.

Bing, of course, was beaming. She was in dark red—Eli had been strangely insistent on the color red being part of all this—and her curls were romantically swept up. Bing was beaming, and Bing was also starting to cry.

" _Bing_ ," Darcy said, rather desperately. Bing must not cry. Bing must not do anything so dangerously close to a rush of emotion, not when Darcy was teetering on an edge that she did not want to see.

"You're just so _beautiful_ ," Bing said, dabbing at her cheeks with the heels of her hands. "Ugh, thank goodness we used waterproof mascara." She beckoned to the photographer, and Darcy tried not to wince under a few more swift flashes.

"That's lovely," Bing nodded fervently. "These candid moments—Darcy, you're going to treasure them!"

Darcy nodded. Her breath was coming a little short.

Bing bustled about the hotel suite, snatching up Darcy's bouquet—red roses—and her own. "These are so much heavier than they look!"

Darcy put a hand on her chest. "Bing," she said, distinctly, "Would you—go get me some water? Please?"

Bing stopped short and looked at her. Her brows drew together but she didn't crush Darcy's finery with a sudden embrace as she normally did. "Yes," she said. "I'll go get you something."

She left, and took the photographer with her. Darcy looked around the room—too beautiful and impersonal, all prestige and no presence. Then she collapsed onto the nearest chair.

Her dress would be wrinkled. But that wouldn't matter, would it, if she couldn't even breathe?

 _Get up,_ her own voice snapped inside her. _Get up, you can't do this now. You can't break down now. Not you. You're not the one who does this. Certainly not twenty minutes before you're supposed to get married_.

Bing wasn't coming back. Darcy stood up and had to sit down again. She was panicking. This was a panic attack, one of those shameful, ugly, tearing things that had haunted her teenage years, after—and now, now, now—

There were tears starting in her eyes. Her heart was beating out of her chest and this just _wasn't_ like her. She was in love. She had never been more in love than every new morning, every new day, knowing that Eli was hers forever.

 _No. This is something wrong with you._ The diamond on her finger winked up at her; a modest diamond, all Eli could afford. She loved it because it was small, because it was a reminder that he gave to her all the things her own wealth could never give—perhaps even salvation from this, the binding, cloying chaos that seemed to be her own internal revenge for happiness.

Bing wasn't coming back. In a moment, Darcy realized why; Bing had sent someone else in her stead.

Specifically, someone who was going to be her husband in less than twenty minutes.

He didn't say anything for a moment, but she heard his step outside the door. She had it memorized, that easy walk of his. If his tuxedo trousers had pockets, no doubt he had his hands in them, elbows cocked, effortless.

Eli said, "Can I come in?"

"No!" Darcy said, and it was hoarse and rather sharp. She didn't want to sound _weepy_. Dammit, if her mascara started running, waterproof or no—what was happening to her? This was the happiest day of her life, and she was nearly on the floor, in tears.

"No?" Eli sounded taken aback.

"It's—tradition." Darcy sniffed. "I'm in my dress."

"Ah."

The bodice boning was too tight, bands of iron around her ribs. Darcy ran a hand over her throat, finger and thumb pressing at the points of tension beneath her jaw. "I love you," she said. "But I—I don't know what's happening to me."

"You only have to look at two people," Eli said. He could be gentle, and he was, now. She heard a shift; he was pressed against the door. "It's just me and Fitz. You look at Fitz, and then you just walk, and walk, and look at me."

"I'm not getting cold feet."

"How could you." There was a smile in his voice—she _loved_ that smile, that voice. "You're marrying _me_."

"I can't seem to stand up," Darcy whispered. Weakness, all weakness. He hadn't seen this side of her, really, until now. "Eli, I think you're making—"

"Can I come in if I close my eyes?"

"You'd cheat."

"You wound me." The doorknob was turning.

" _Eli_!"

"You need," Eli said, nudging the toe of his shoe through the door, "To be kissed. That seems the only ready solution."

"I'm a mess," Darcy said. "You shouldn't marry me. You should marry Bing."

"James would be—very distressed by that turn of events." A pause. "As would I. Bing is—what's the phrase…a ray of sunshine. Turns out I want the storm cloud."

"The storm cloud is ruining her dress," Darcy retorted. She sniffed again, a little too loudly.

"I'm really coming in," Eli said.

"Wait!" That had Darcy on her feet, and oh, clever boy, he'd gotten that out of her. She wasn't shaky anymore, because she had a purpose. Before he could round the corner of the door, she had a hand stretched out. "I'm covering your eyes, because I don't trust you not to look."

Eli shut his eyes obediently under her fingers, but she still had half the effect of his rakish grin. "This really matters to you, doesn't it?" His arm came around her waist, holding her. Holding her up. "It certainly feels like a very lovely dress," he said, his hand moving lightly over her back. His voice dropped lower. "Though I'm much more interested in what's underneath."

"Just kiss me," Darcy said.

"I can't see, remember?"

"I'll guide you." Just like that, her voice had softened, and all the demons gone. Silenced, even for a moment. She lifted her chin, and with her other hand, the one that wasn't covering his eyes, she tugged him towards her. His hair was more orderly than usual, and she caught a whiff of that expensive cologne Fitz had pointed him towards. It was intoxicating.

Darcy kissed him, hard.

"Just what the doctor ordered," Bing said cheerily, reentering the room. "Now, come on, Eli. You have to get to the church first."

"It's right across the street," Eli protested, as Darcy pulled away and he reluctantly stopped kissing her. "Good God, Lee. Don't be a spartan. Just another moment—"

"Away with you!" Bing said. Bing, _imperious_. Darcy felt a laugh, unimaginable five minutes ago, rising in her. Bing and Eli together could set her right, if nothing could. Bing grabbed Eli's shoulders and turned him about-face, then pushed him out the door, while he continued to protest.

"Let's go meet Fitz," she said, and now she reached for Darcy, with all the warmth and understanding that made her what she was. "Come on."

Fitz was in the hotel lobby. When Darcy descended the main staircase, he cheered.

"Dorothy Jane," he said. He only called her that on state occasions. "You look like an angel, but I know better than to call you one."

"Didn't you just?" Darcy said. Bing, holding the bouquets, telegraphed nothing—even Fitz would not know that Darcy had been on the verge of an anxious breakdown just a moment before.

"Did I? You're the lawyer," Fitz said, and offered her his arm.

"No, Fitz," Bing said, overflowing with glee. "She's not a lawyer _today_."

 _ii._

"What did you do to your tie?" James asked. "Five minutes, Eli."

"First of all, you're being very—school-teacherish. And second, I didn't do _anything_ to my tie." Eli tilted his head back so that James could adjust it properly, and then smiled wickedly. "That was all my future wife. Wanted to be sure my mouth still worked correctly, before we make it official."

James just shook his head. "Try to keep it together for the Mass, dude."

"Yes," Eli said. "Thanks, that looks right again. Well, hopefully I look good enough for God." He smiled, a little more wryly. Bennetts never placed much stock in religion, but Darcy did, so he was trying.

James smiled. Beamed, really. He and Bing shared that particular trait. "You look great," he said. "Eli, I just wanted to say—no, wait, let me say it, I'm so happy for you. You deserve this more than any of us. You deserve to have this big, glitzy wedding with her, because she loves you, and—"

"I'd really just rather you hugged me," Eli said. "But thank you. You know I don't really deserve it, and you know that Darcy is more— _everything_ than I can ever be, and yet here I am. Having to fix my tie."

James ran a hand over his eyes.

"Better now than during the toast," Eli said, and they walked into the cathedral together.

Afterwards, of course, he would pretend to remember the artistry of the arches, the grandeur and the gold. But that day, none of it mattered.

Nothing was without flaw. Their lives, brought together, were built stronger by pain. Eli had spent a good deal of time, in a past life, thinking about the end of the world. At the beginning, now, he found that things still had to be carried. His family, in borrowed suits, looked small and out of the place in the front row, a keen reminder that he was out of place, here in this city.

But he wasn't here for a place.

Music, Darcy had told him, had color as well as sound for her. He didn't see the world that way himself, but there was something shimmering in the air when the organ swelled around them. And there was more than something in his chest when she came into view.

Darcy didn't look like any other bride. She was still grave, even stern, but only around the edges. All in white, with Fitz beaming beside her, Eli was overcome. He was a writer, but this could not be written. No talent, no tongue could shape this, which was enough for itself.

And, God love her, she was nervous. He could tell _that_ from a mile (an aisle) away. She had been nervous when he kissed her with his eyes closed—his Darcy, as sharp and hard as steel to everyone else, was secretly capable of breaking.

If he'd had the right kind of father, no doubt that would be something he'd learned. That it was his duty, to keep her safe from the edges inside her. But he didn't have that kind of father. He'd learned from other teachers, and not before Darcy had been hurt.

He didn't deserve her. He'd meant that, when he said it to James. But Fitz was smiling at him, and so was George, from the front pew, and James was beside him, and Darcy—

Darcy loved him. As she came closer, he saw her face relax a little, and she smiled.

He wanted to kiss her, then. He wanted to take her away, where she wouldn't have to be under the eyes of the world, even though she was stronger in the face of that world than anyone he'd ever known.

But then again, there was the small matter of vows and rings and bells first.

It wasn't any tradition he knew of, but when she stood close enough, Eli reached out, took her hand, and didn't let go.

For a glad hour, he didn't have to think of his father, no doubt, grumbling and plotting by turns behind him, or the bitterness in his mother's eyes. He couldn't think of being fearful of the future; the present was enough, surrounding him, beside him, hand in his.

He said "I do," when it was his turn, but it almost seemed unnecessary. How could everyone not already know?

There was a wide glow of happiness around them. Outside it was late afternoon; the golden hours. They were in a city that was far too much for him, surrounded by a crowd far above his station. But Darcy was his wife, and Darcy was in his arms.

"I love you," he said. "That's what that whole thing was just about, right?"

"Legally, morally, or practically?"

"Truthfully," he said, and he kissed her again, on the church steps, in full view of the world.


	2. feel the warmth of love

_"And when the heart has full repose,  
'Tis mutual love the gift bestows." – Cassandra Austen, poem_

 _i._

Darcy woke up late. She hadn't slept in for—years? A decade? But there was something rather singular about this particular morning. The sun was shafting through the curtains, dappling the room with liquid gold and the gleam of light and shade.

Darcy shifted to her side; Eli was still sleeping, his lashes curling dark against his cheeks. His hair was wonderfully tousled. Darcy had, admittedly, been responsible for much of the tousling.

She lay there for a long time, perfectly content. That in itself was a new feeling; the dark threads of chaos that had plagued her even yesterday seemed faded and irrelevant in the light of morning.

Eli. _Husband_. The thought sent a thrill through her—almost reverently, she rested her hand lightly against his cheek.

His eyes fluttered open and his fingers closed around her wrist.

"Hey," he said. His eyes said that he loved her, and also that he was just slightly smug, and she found it wholly entrancing.

"Hey," she whispered.

"Did you sleep well?" he asked, leaning in for a kiss.

Darcy smiled mid-kiss. "Sleep?"

He laughed. "You know, not that it really matters…but we never picked where we were going for our honeymoon."

"We didn't do a lot of things we were supposed to," Darcy said, resting her head against his shoulder. It was true; they hadn't had a rehearsal dinner and Chris Burgh had nearly thrown a fit, though he had barely acquiesced to attend the wedding in the first place. "You know I don't care about any of that."

"Neither do I. Just so long as I have your two weeks off from work all to myself." Eli reached forward and twined a strand of her hair through his fingers.

"Since I'm fantastically wealthy," Darcy said, rather dryly, "Don't you want to go somewhere splendid?"

Eli exhaled and shrugged a shoulder. "I guess…Paris would be nice."

"You're very cliched for a writer."

"How dare you," Eli said. He propped his head up on one elbow and just looked at her for a long moment. Then he kissed her again. "Where do you want to go?"

"I want to stay here forever."

"Right here?" Eli's eyes sparkled. "Honestly, I'd be fine with that."

When they eventually made their way to the private breakfast room, Fitz and George were waiting for them.

Fitz was sitting upright, smiling studiously from ear to ear, with his hands folded. George was staring at the floor.

"Good morning," said Darcy, with perfect and practiced chill.

"It _is_ , isn't it?" Fitz asked. George's ears, and then his whole face, went red.

"We should have just flown to Madrid at three in the morning," Eli said, in her ear.

"Agreed," Darcy said.

"Don't you guys have a honeymoon to go on?" George asked. Or rather, squeaked.

Darcy rolled her eyes. "Yes, but we never decided where we wanted to go, because we're both—"

"Aloof and anti-social?" Fitz interjected pleasantly. "Love you both, by the way. Have some cantaloupe—it's exquisite."

"You could go to Vienna," George said. His eyes lit up. "There's so much history there—I mean, _Mozart_?"

Darcy was glad that he was sufficiently distracted by musical history to meditate further on the inherent awkwardness. She ate her cantaloupe and glowered at Fitz when his eyebrows were too expressive, and tried not to melt whenever Eli looked at her. That last task was almost shockingly difficult.

After breakfast, they escaped to the hotel terrace and looked out over the city. The uneven staccato of the skyline, all the metal and concrete and humanity, had always stabbed at Darcy's heart.

"Do you love it?" she asked, leaning back against his chest.

"I love _you_."

A tiny pang ran through her. With her long hours and many responsibilities, it had been hard to find a place that would be workable; where Eli could be conceivably close to visit Meryton if necessary, and where Darcy could commute to work. He had gotten an adjunct teaching position at a college not far from Poughkeepsie, and Darcy leased a weekend home there. Eli had been nothing but accommodating, but weeknights spent apart wouldn't be easy.

 _I don't want to hold you back_ , he'd said, a dozen times, with something haunting the depths of his eyes. Darcy didn't have to ask what that something was; a glance at his parents was enough. Mrs. Bennett was wheelchair-bound, but that wasn't what kept her in a tumble-down house with beer bottles stacked in every corner.

So Darcy kept her job, and Eli took one too, though they didn't need the money from either. But that was a subject about which Darcy felt she could not be too delicate. They were newly married; everyone worked when they were newly married.

"So," Eli said, softly, but she could hear him, and feel the words too, with her head leaning against him like that, "About the honeymoon thing."

"Yeah?" She traced his fingers with hers.

"I don't want to go anywhere. Far, I mean."

"Really?"

"I just—we only have two weeks. We should visit everywhere that something important happened for the two of us. Block Island…Hunsford school…Meryton—that Manhattan alley, even."

Darcy felt a blush warming her cheeks. "You're so romantic," she said, lifting an eyebrow.

Eli sighed, exaggeratedly. "You're not supposed to _know_ that."

"I married that," Darcy said.

"Yes you did, Mrs. Bennett," Eli said. His eyebrows were as incorrigible as ever.

 _ii._

Driving towards Meryton, he had to remind himself—this wasn't coming home anymore. It was surreal and wonderful, the fateful Bentley cruising through the tired town yet again, but this time, Darcy had deigned to let him drive it.

"You and Fitz are the only other people who have," she told him, sitting primly in the passenger seat. He rather loved it when she was prim.

"Not Bing?"

"Absolutely not. I love Bing, but she drives like she talks."

Eli chuckled. "She's off-the-wall that you're going to be technically sisters in a month."

"My maid of honor speech will be so stilted by comparison," Darcy said, with a sigh. "I don't know how she puts up with me."

"It's ridiculous for you to let me drive, and then make me want to kiss you…it's not going to work."

"You're going to have me around for the rest of your life," Darcy retorted archly. "There's plenty of time for kissing."

"Never enough." But he was smiling at the road ahead. It was a familiar road, but it had lost a good deal of its hold on him in a relatively short time.

If Darcy hadn't already been the most perfect woman in the universe, which, frankly, wasn't up for debate in Eli's opinion, she would have been now, for agreeing to visit his mother in their precious two weeks.

"I need to get to know her better," Darcy had said. A year of dating and engagement hadn't been enough time for Mom to be anything but evasive and cordial; Eli was resigned to it, but Darcy had taken it on as a serious mission.

"I'm her son," Eli said, biting back _favorite_ _son_ because the words always stuck in his throat even when he didn't say them aloud, "And I still barely know her."

"But you're like her."

 _Not the parts I want you to know. Not all of them, anyway._ "Yes. I guess."

"You love her."

"Yes, I do."

The old house looked the same. Still gray, but emptier now. Cody and James were sharing an apartment in town; James would be moving out before the wedding, and Cody had hinted that Levi might be sharing it with him instead. For now, only Mark and Levi were still at home.

They were outside on the porch when Eli pulled in. The porch roof was sagging a little more than it had been a month ago. Eli felt a sigh escape him, and figured it wouldn't be the last one today.

The Bentley felt suddenly too grand.

"Hi," Mark said. Levi said nothing at first. Once he would have had any number of flip remarks, but certain experiences had changed him, and the presence of Darcy always had a humbling effect.

"Just stopping by," Eli said. He scratched the back of his neck, feeling Darcy— _his wife_ —looking at him, waiting, and said, "Levi, you need to touch up the truck. It's rusting."

"It's always rusting," Levi said. Which was true. They needed a new truck. There was a strange tension in Eli's chest; he realized that he could buy them a new truck, a new house, a new everything. If he said the word, Darcy would write the check.

 _One step at a time_.

"Mom in her room?"

"Yeah."

They went inside. He took Darcy's hand, but he almost didn't want to. Not because he didn't want to touch her, but because he always felt like folding in on himself when he was here with her. This had been his life, and none of it seemed to fit. She'd visited in the months when they were dating, and engaged, but Eli had kept a distance.

Darcy was quiet beside him. He ran his thumb over the diamond on her finger, and the new band.

"We're married," Darcy said, under her breath. And the dust that had settled in his lungs seemed to lighten a bit.

"Yeah we are." He kissed her temple and they started up the stairs.

Mom was staring out the window. They'd had something pretty close to a fight a week before the wedding—she hadn't want to come after all. _I haven't been out of this house in years, Elijah. I don't plan on being a spectacle for your wife's rich friends._

She'd come, in the end.

Eli dug his fingernails into the palm of his hand. "Hi, Mom"

"You came," said Mom. Eli wondered if Darcy could see the family resemblance.

"It's nice to see you again, Mrs. Bennett," Darcy said. She sounded stiff. Eli knew it was because she was uncertain.

"Here to see the dreaded mother-in-law?" Mom's face softened a little. "I'm joking. Eli, you look ill. Sit down and stop twisting the girl's fingers off."

Eli rolled his eyes, but he was inwardly relieved. He and Darcy sat down.

"Where are you headed off to?"

"We're just going here and there around the state," Darcy said. "Nothing too fancy."

"I'd have thought you go to Venice or somewhere like that," Mom said, almost disapprovingly. "This one always wanted to travel."

Darcy bit her lip. "I'd be happy to—"

"Cut it out, Mom," Eli said, with a smile, but just enough edge to telegraph that he wasn't going to put up with her sly digs at Darcy. "Are you here on your own? The boys are outside, but I didn't see Dad."

"Your father is at a town meeting," Mom said. Eli couldn't be sorry. The wedding had been tense enough, with his brothers keeping Dad away from the bar. Dad would still be in a sour mood about it, no doubt.

"Is this about the pipeline?"

Mom's lips pressed together. "Yes," she said. "I've been…meaning to talk to you about that." She spread her hands out on her knees. "Eli, they're going to be tearing down our house."

Eli stood up. "What the hell?"

Mom waved a hand. "Calm down. I know you and James have been—handling the mortgage all these years, but your father…he has debts. And if he gives over the property for an easement, he can pay it off. He signed the contract a couple days ago. Didn't tell me, of course, the bastard." She looked towards the window again. "I like the air that comes through here sometimes. But I wouldn't this tumbledown place."

"Where are you going to live?" Eli demanded, refraining, with difficulty, from calling Dad some unmentionable names.

"Not sure yet. I didn't want to bother you—"

"It wouldn't be a bother," Darcy interjected. She looked a bit pale, and spoke hesitantly, but firmly. "I would be—"

Mom raised her eyebrows. "Oh, no, no," she said. "No, I'm sure whatever you're about to say won't be necessary. But thank you. I'm glad my favorite son has married someone so—generous."

Darcy stared down at her lap.

Eli ran a hand over his face. "Mom, this isn't over. I'll call James tonight and—ah, crap. Tell us if Dad does anymore stupid sh—things, OK?"

"Hard to choose a winner, with that one," Mom said wryly. "But please. Enjoy your trip. I'll have a bed to sleep in, tonight. The world turns on."

"I'll be in touch," Eli said. He couldn't look at Darcy, but he reached for her hand.


	3. from admiration to love

_"Do not be in a hurry, the right man will come at last." – Jane Austen_

 _i._

The wind was playing havoc with her hair. Darcy pushed it behind her ears for the third time in a minute, and let her feet sink deeper into the mud at the edge of the lake. It was up to her ankles, and it was wonderfully soft.

"I'm not Cal Lee," Eli, wading in beside her. "I have no jet-skis."

"And thank God," Darcy said, tugging at the hems of her shorts. Cal Lee had not attended their wedding, though Eli had invited him. Eli, Darcy knew, occasionally liked to twist the knife a bit.

"I've never seen you in shorts before," Eli observed.

"I saved them for marriage," Darcy said flatly. Eli laughed, hooking an arm around her waist and pulling her against him.

"Hey," he said, against her hair. "I'm sorry about…before."

They'd left the Bennetts not too long after Mrs. Bennett had dropped the bomb about the pipeline. Eli had been angry—Darcy knew that look, knew it well, from the set of his jaw and the wall up behind his eyes. They'd driven north, to find a lake, because that had been their original plan, and Darcy had stayed quiet.

It was one of those things she could give him—space, and silence when he needed it.

"I'm sorry I offered—" the words choked off in her throat. "I don't want to be disrespectful of your family."

"Easy to do. They're not respectable," Eli said, a little bitterly.

The sun was shining. It was a glorious day out. "I just wish I could help."

"I know." Eli blew out his breath. "It's just—my mom won't take help, and my dad doesn't deserve it."

Darcy turned her head so that she could look up at him. "But—they're your parents." She didn't want to add, _they're alive_ , but she couldn't help thinking it. At the wedding, the thought had been painfully permanent. Her mother and father were conspicuously absent; George, alone in the first pew while she walked up with Fitz, had looked so alone even though he had been happy.

"It's complicated," Eli said. "It's—really freaking complicated."

"It's your money now too," Darcy whispered. Maybe if she whispered it, it wouldn't seem to be over the line.

"No, it's not."

"It's more than I could ever spend in my life," Darcy said. "That's why I work. So that I don't just float aimlessly, letting other people run a world that's too big for any one person. And _still_. Still, it's too much. I can send George to the school of his dreams and I can give to charity, and I can manage the causes my parents loved, but it's too much. Please. Your family needs—" She felt Eli stiffen a little against her.

"I'll call James tonight," he said, a gentle interruption but an interruption nonetheless. "And then…yeah, we can talk about this more." Which meant he didn't want to talk about it now. Darcy swallowed down her worry as best she could. She'd had a lot of practice.

"It's a beautiful day out," she said, after a moment's silence.

"Only one storm cloud in sight," Eli said, affectionately. He leaned and scooped her up, one arm behind her shoulders and the other under her knees. "Shall we go in a little farther?"

"Don't drop me," Darcy said warningly. The water was pleasantly cool, but not freezing.

"Of course not. Wouldn't want to ruin those adorable shorts."

She sniffed, hiding the fact that she was pleased. "Don't get used to them. I don't do shorts in front of everyone else."

"I like everything you wear. Or don't wear."

" _Eli_."

He grinned boyishly. "There's no one else around. Remember that red dress?"

Did she ever. "Of course."

"It drove me crazy. I was so pissed when the hottest girl in the room turned around and it was you."

She could feel her cheeks getting warm. "You thought I was hot?" Which, obviously, she should know by now, but it was still nice to hear. After all, Eli had hated her rather passionately for the first few months of their acquaintance.

The gold flecks in Eli's eyes were more visible in the sunlight, more visible up close. "First moment I saw you. It's even better now that I…tolerate you." He tilted an eyebrow.

Darcy said nothing but let her eyes go hard just a second too late for him to react. Then she lurched in his arms to put him off balance so that he fell backwards, underwater.

Of course, she was soaked too, but it didn't matter because Eli was completely submerged and spluttering. Darcy folded her arms over her chest and laughed. The wind was picking up again, sending ripples through the water like folds in silk.

He came up for air, regaining his footing, and pushed his hair out of his eyes. "See? Now you're definitely dead."

"Worth it," Darcy said, after he'd tossed her in the water for good measure. Instead of trying to escape his reach, she came closer. "Speaking of memories, remember when you came to Netherfield because James twisted his ankle?"

"God, yes. I remember every single moment of it. At least I've finally introduced you to Doritos."

"And they are remarkably disgusting. Well, anyway, that time, when you came in, and you were all wet…I could see every single muscle." She trailed her fingers demonstratively down his shirt. "That's when I knew I was in deep."

Eli just kissed her.

Darcy wished the two weeks would never end.

 _ii._

Eli waited until late at night to call James. He slipped out of bed reluctantly because, that meant slipping out of Darcy's arms. She was really out of it, and he was glad, because he knew that she sometimes had trouble with nightmares. So far, so good.

The silver blue of night cast the room in shadows that were much more dynamic than anything about the frilly bed-and-breakfast room by day. Eli stood by the window, thumbing his finger absently across the screen of his phone. Darcy's hair fanned out around her on the pillow, and Eli loved her just as much as he wasn't good enough for her.

He rubbed his eyes and called James.

"What's going on?" James sounded tired, but not like he'd just woken up.

"Sorry it's late."

"Nah, it's fine. Cody and I were just watching TV."

"Nice." He missed his brothers sometimes. He'd moved out from home shortly after he started dating Darcy, found an apartment (and a job) downstate that had worked out well with the latest Poughkeepsie connection, and he had never once been sorry about being free of Dad. But it was weird to not have James there, always, and even the younger ones hanging around and having burping contests or whatever.

"How's Darcy?"

"Perfect." Eli cleared his throat. "Uh, so. Have you talked to Mom lately?"

"Earlier today."

"Did she tell you what Dad did?"

Immediately James' voice took on that undertone of worry that he'd been practicing for the past twenty years, basically. "Dammit. What did he do?"

"He signed over the property—house included—for the pipeline easement. They're going to give him like, a hundred and twenty K."

" _Dammit_."

Eli chewed his lip. "Yeah. I think it's probably a done deal. Apparently Dad didn't even talk to Mom about it."

"How is she doing?" James had stepped away from the TV sounds in the background.

"Same as always," Eli said, but then, Mom rarely varied. It was always the same steady calm, the dry, detached commentary, and occasionally, too many pills. You never knew which one, exactly, it would be.

"I guess it's their house," James said.

 _Unless you count the fact that you and I have paid the mortgage since our mid-teens_ , Eli thought, but did not say. It wouldn't do any good to get into it with James. They needed to be on the same side. And if he thought long and hard about it, the house wasn't that important. Sure, it was the only home they'd ever known. There were memories there—but there were memories everywhere, and the tire swing tree and the dusty driveway and the musty halls were bittersweet at best. Eli hated to think of it carved up for industry and oil, but that was more out of a matter of principle.

"The problem is," he said, after he'd taken a moment, "Is that Dad can't just blow all that money. He has to pay those debts. And also, we'll need to figure out a place for Mom and Mark to live."

"And Dad," said James.

"Screw Dad."

"Eli."

"Fine. Dad too." Eli tugged aside the lace curtains that were wreathed around the windows. He wanted a better look at the moon. He wanted a lot of things, but the moon was the most reachable at the moment. "We need to make sure they find a good place to live."

Darcy would write that check. Darcy would write every check. And Eli wasn't sure if it was pride, or something nobler, but he wasn't ready to go down that path yet. _You don't love her for that, and she has to be sure_. There it was.

"OK," James said. "OK. Let me talk to Bing. There's a place next to the one that we're buying. That might work."

"Holy hell," Eli said. "Do you really want Bing having to put up with daily visits from Dad for your entire marriage?"

"I don't think he'd come over _every_ day."

Eli bit back a curse. "I don't think you're remembering our father correctly."

"Well," James said, peaceable as usual, "One day at a time. I'll go visit Mom tomorrow and try to get the details. How much time they have, etcetera. You're on your honeymoon. Remember that?"

It was hard to forget. Darcy turned over and sighed in her sleep. Eli sat down on the edge of the bed and brushed her hair back from her face. "I remember."


	4. for real comfort

**A/N: Thank you so much for all the support so far!**

 _"I have no notion of loving people by halves, it is not my nature." – Jane Austen, Northanger Abbey_

 _i._

Being a second-year associate wasn't the big-leagues, not yet. Darcy was objectively grateful for being treated like any other young lawyer in the bullpen, but subjectively, it was just as exhausting as it had always been. The case on her desk—the case she'd be running point on for months—was a civil suit going to trial in a month unless they could settle the damn thing.

 _Female former employee brings sexual harassment suit against powerful CEO_. Ordinarily it would have settled by now; most big companies didn't like the press of a trial. But this guy was bullish, arrogant. Darcy wanted to take him down.

 _We're a defense firm_ , her supervisor had said, and his words rang in her mind. _Don't make my life hell with this pro bono case. Handle it._

And here she was, careening towards trial unless she figured something out.

Darcy sighed, watch the clock tick towards seven, and ran her hands through her hair.

It was the beginning of July. Two summers ago—Darcy had been in the throes of self-denial. Last summer, she'd been in love. And now?

Now her heart was running far away from her head. She bit down around the possibility that that fickle organ was constantly suggesting. _Quit your job. Spend every minute with Eli. Never work a day again_.

 _It's a good thing I have more than just a heart._

Still, having a brain didn't mean she wasn't going to come as close as possible to flooring the accelerator on her way home. For summer, at least, Eli would be there. He was putting up with the New York City apartment until his teaching job started (and only someone as countrified as Eli—countrified meant affectionately—would consider it "putting up with" in the first place).

"But what will you do all day?" she'd asked, worried.

"I'm writing again," Eli had assured her. "And George and I will keep busy."

That had brought a smile to her face. Darcy was smiling a lot these days, all things considered, even with the stress at work.

She came in the apartment quietly because she heard voices. They were coming from the kitchen. When Darcy rounded the corner, her jaw dropped.

Eli and George were _cooking_.

There weren't exactly aprons or oven mitts happening, but they had their sleeves rolled up and George appeared to be kneading dough while Eli sautéd something— _sautéd_ —in a pan. Darcy knew—had known for quite some time—that Eli knew how to cook, since he and James had basically taken over the adult responsibilities in their family home, but it was for that very reason that she hadn't really brought it up a lot. She wasn't much of a cook herself, and the money associated with eating out or buying prepared food that was actually palatable…well, it simply wasn't an issue.

Darcy slipped out of her heels so that she could stand on firm ground. "Are you making dinner?"

They both turned, as though caught in some guilty act.

"Yeah," George said. "Pizza OK?"

Darcy tried biting back her smile, but it simply wouldn't be contained. "I hope you don't mind if I eat it with a fork and knife."

Eli crossed the room and kissed her. "You are not allowed to eat it with a fork. Ever. In my presence."

"I don't have pizza clothes."

"She has an old t-shirt and pajama pants that she sometimes wears," George said, inspecting his burgeoning crust.

"George!"

"Why didn't the old t-shirt come on the honeymoon with us?" Eli inquired, all innocence.

"It's not respectable," Darcy protested, trying, unsuccessfully, to slip out of his arms. (She wasn't trying very hard.)

"It has Darth Vader on it," George put in helpfully.

Eli's eyes glinted. "I have to see this. This is exactly what till death do us part means. It means we have to share everything."

" _Fine_ ," Darcy said, giving him an icy glared that melted when he kept grinning. "But I thought you were a literature nerd, not a closet _Star Wars_ nerd."

"Everyone's a closet _Star Wars_ nerd."

Darcy said, "Well, are you going to let me go change?"

Eli tilted his head to one side. "I'll come with you."

Darcy pushed his lips away with her fingertips and made her best attempt at a coy smile. Judging from Eli's expression, it was successful. "I think you have some more cooking to do."

Upstairs, alone for a moment, she thought that she really might be turning into Bing. How was it even possible for so much light to fit inside one person, one life? Darcy took out her earrings, slipped on the offending Darth Vader shirt, and stared in the mirror. _Would it last?_

She shook her head at the question, insistent that she wouldn't derailed by worries tonight. Tonight was enough. Eli was enough.

 _But are you enough?_

Fitz came in with a bottle of wine as she came downstairs.

"Well if it isn't casual Tuesday," he said, waggling his eyebrows. "I should have worn my Chewbacca mask."

"Don't act like you haven't seen this before. I'm married now, so Eli might as well realize the depths of my secretly casual wardrobe," Darcy said.

"One novelty t-shirt doesn't count as casual."

"Give me the wine, _Frederick_."

Fitz chuckled—chortled, really—and complied.

George was setting the table when she came back in.

"That's hot," Eli said, low, looking at the shirt. "Just like the shorts."

"Duly noted, you like the Saturday girlfriend look better than the corporate lawyer," Darcy said. She turned up the lights so that the room was bathed in a golden glow.

"Saturday _wife_ ," Eli said, with a wicked smirk. "And the corporate lawyer is hot too, believe me."

"This is a family-friendly dinner, you two," Fitz said, clearly enjoying every second of it. "Now, let me serve the salad while the pizza bakes—George, the oven was preheated, I presume?"

" _I_ never forget to preheat the oven," George said, shutting off his phone. It was as close as he came to teasing. "Hey, Darcy…Mina's birthday is this weekend. Can I go see her?"

George was nineteen, a prodigy at Juilliard, and he still asked permission to go on dates.

Darcy nodded. "Of course." Mina Kim, also nineteen and a prodigy, had passed the various hurdles of approval required to date George. There were many. Fitz had provided moral support throughout the process.

They ate their salad and talked about James and Bing's wedding.

"I can't believe it means standing up by the altar next to Cal," Eli said. "I told James he should just categorically refuse to have anyone from her side in the wedding. But James was too nice. Story of his life."

"At least you'll be the one walking with me," Darcy pointed out.

Fitz practically cackled. "Can you imagine? There would be a fight. I would pay to see that fight."

"There will be no fight at Bing's wedding," Darcy said imperiously. " _I_ am categorically banning chest-puffing." She took a sip of wine. "And let's be honest, that really only applies to my husband here."

"There's nothing wrong with my chest," Eli retorted from the other side of the table, smiling winningly.

"No, there isn't," Darcy said, holding eye contact. "So no need to puff it."

"It's like watching TV," Fitz said, twirling a springy leaf of lettuce around his fork with a rapturous look. "Damn, I ship it."

Darcy glared at him. "Yes, you always have."

"Eli," George said, sort of quietly, as though it wasn't for Fitz and Darcy to hear, "Do I keep it in the box or not?"

"In the box."

"What are you talking about?"

Eli shrugged nonchalantly. "Guy stuff."

"I'm a guy," Fitz opined, with a melodramatically hurt expression.

Darcy narrowed her eyes. "Then it's about a girl. Is this about what you're buying Mina for her birthday? Why didn't you ask me?"

George was red to his hairline. "Um…well, Eli married you. So he's the expert on…stuff."

Fitz choked on his salad. Darcy withered him with a look.

Eli said, "Actually, I'm not that good with presents, so I usually ask Bing. But yeah, in this case, I thought jewelry was nice."

"I'm getting her a bracelet," George explained. "Tiffany's. And I wasn't sure if it was tacky to leave it in the box."

Darcy frowned. "If you're getting it from Tiffany's, what's the point if it isn't in the box?"

"Her family isn't…I didn't want it to seem over the top."

"Oh." Darcy paused. Wealth disparity. She should know something about that, by now. But Eli had said to keep it in the box, too, so this wasn't awkward. "I think she'll like it, George."

George smiled shyly, and Darcy felt that familiar tug in her heart—the part that was George's, only and always. But it was all the better now, sharing him with Eli as she once had just shared him with Fitz. Eli was like the brother George had never had.

After dinner, Fitz and George washed up. Darcy sat on the sofa and Eli stretched out along its length with his head in her lap. She ran her fingers through his hair and he shut his eyes and smiled lazily, reminding her of a sleepy cat.

"I feel bad about getting home so late." She spoke the words softly, as if it made her fears safer.

"You're doing what you need to do," Eli said, opening his eyes. "Really. You're so much more than me, and I want you to be free to—"

Darcy felt something still inside her. "I don't want to be more than…more than…"

"Than I can love? Never." He captured her hands in his.

She breathed again.

 _ii._

His phone rang right when he was in the middle of kissing his wife senseless. Darcy pulled away immediately. "Shouldn't you take that?"

Eli laughed in disbelief. "Your work ethic doesn't take a day off, does it?"

"It's Bing," she said, glancing down at his phone. "Eli. You should take that."

He kissed her defiantly once more and picked up.

"Miss Lee."

"Hi," Bing said, all in a rush. "I'm getting married in less than three weeks, and I just—I'm sorry, you just seemed the right person to call, the resident expert on James, you know? And, oh my gosh. I should have asked. I'm not interrupting anything, am I?"

Eli raised his eyebrows at Darcy, who smirked. "Of course not."

"Oh, OK. I won't take more than five minutes. Anyway, I am not getting cold feet. This is the opposite. I just—I wanted to make sure that James is really OK with how overwhelming everything is. Like, not just marrying me, but also, the wedding? And I just hope that you would tell me if he was being his beautiful, self-sacrificing self and going along with it to make me happy. Because I would be happy if I married James wearing a potato sack. I meant me, wearing the sack—that was weird syntax. He could wear one too. I—anyway, I just want him to be happy."

"I bet you feel better already after getting all that out," Eli said, flopping down on the bed. Darcy sat down next to him and gave him one of her sphinxlike smiles.

"I _do_." Bing sighed. "How did you know?"

"Lucky guess." He ran a hand through his hair and played with the hem of Darcy's t-shirt. "OK, so listen. I know James. He is definitely a pushover. I love him, but he's a pushover. That said, he is totally thrilled about every aspect of this. The flowers, your bridesmaid dresses—I think we've all learned about just how many colors there are in the universe—and he wants nothing more than for you to have your dream wedding. And then your dream-rest-of-your-life. He is one hundred percent on cloud nine. I'm mixing numbers, or metaphors, or something."

"I'm so grateful to have you," Bing said. "You and me and James and Darcy—is Darcy there?"

"Hello, Bing," said Darcy dryly.

"Darcy!" Bing squeaked. "Oh. Gosh. I _was_ interrupting, wasn't I?"

Darcy quirked an eyebrow, which Bing couldn't see, but somehow she managed to relay it by her tone. "Possibly."

Bing's blush was also palpable. "Ahhh! OK. OK. Eli, thank you. Darcy, I will call you tomorrow on your lunch break. About some stuff. Anyway, I love you guys! I love you guys so much. You two are married! Ahh. OK. Bye!"

She hung up before they could reply. "I can't believe she's a real person sometimes," Eli said, chuckling. It was so— _right_ that James, who deserved nothing but sunshine, was marrying the human embodiment of it.

"Yeah," Darcy said. "Still don't know how she decided to befriend me."

"I do." Eli pulled her down beside him and laced their fingers together. "I just realized, I've forgotten to ask you the crucial question of the day. How was work?"

Darcy chewed her lip. "It was…I'm trying to make a really big settlement out of a really big mess."

"Ah."

"It's not really the crucial question," she said, sighing. "I just like being here with you and not thinking about it."

"Alright." He paused, and breathed. They'd been navigating this for their whole relationship—her work was a huge part of her life, but it stressed her out and she liked to keep it separate. Which was fine with him, but he never wanted it to seem like he wasn't interested.

"Crucial question, my version," Darcy said. "How's the writing?"

He was making an argument about which of Shakespeare's plays lent themselves to modernization and why, and which didn't. "Titus Andronicus is giving me some trouble."

"Sweeney Todd," Darcy said. "Human pies, and all that. Brings it a few centuries forward at least."

"You know Sweeney Todd."

"I hate musicals, but yes."

"I love you."

"I know."

Eli turned onto his side and slipped his arm beneath her. "When you quote _Star Wars_ , wearing that shirt…"

Darcy smiled. "Do you like it?"

He leaned in and answered with a kiss.


	5. happier than I deserve

_"I do not want people to be very agreeable, as it saves me the trouble of liking them a great deal." - Letters of Jane Austen_

 _i._

"We didn't have a rehearsal dinner." Eli glowered. He was sitting on the edge of the bed, hair still a glorious mess, with his collar unbuttoned and a rebellious look in his eye.

It was true. Darcy had wanted one thing: St. Patrick's Cathedral. No shower, no rehearsal dinner, no planned honeymoon. Well, she had wanted Eli. That was the other thing, and a rather important one too. She reminded herself that they didn't have time to get...distracted and turned back to the mirror. "The Lees like to do things by the book."

"What a book," Eli drawled, all disdain.

Darcy pushed her hair away from her neck. "Zip me up?"

He stood up and moved behind her, a hand on the small of her back.

"I can't help but feel that I'm pulling this zipper the wrong way."

Darcy forced herself not to smile, not to lean lazily back against him. "Eli, I will _not_ be late for Bing's rehearsal dinner. This is not a negotiation."

"You're a lawyer," Eli said close by her ear. "Isn't everything a negotiation?"

"I'm never late."  
"No exceptions?" His voice was teasing.  
Darcy said, sternly, "Imagine making Bing and James anxious."

He sighed deeply. " _Fine_." He tugged the zipper up and pressed a kiss against the back of her head. "Happy?"

"Always, with you." Before he could tease her for being straightforwardly romantic, she slipped on her stilettos. "Come on."

George was waiting for them downstairs, shifting from one foot to another and staring at his phone.

"Everything OK?" Eli asked, even before Darcy did.

George started and nodded. "Yeah. Yeah it's fine."

Darcy filed away his reaction for later. Her George radar had pinged. Never a good sign.

She wasn't sure how she felt about Bing having the wedding in Meryton. On the one hand, it was Bing's wedding, and she could have it wherever she liked. But all of Bing's family was in Boston, and Darcy was a stickler for tradition. Then again, perhaps the underlying twinge was that Darcy had gone for New York City glamour-even if the guest list had been modest-and the Bennett family at large might have preferred otherwise. Bing was much more accommodating to family taste.

Which was, more than likely, why even Mrs. Bennett seemed to have warmed to her. Mrs. Bennett wasn't known for her warmth.

Neither was Darcy.

Therein lay the trouble. But Darcy's wedding was over, and so very much of it had been beautiful, that she did her level bets to put her worries to rest. _Bing and James. Bing and James_. They were the ones who mattered. Bing, who was getting married within twenty-four hours.

"You OK?" Eli asked. "You're clenching that wheel like it's going to run away from you."

Darcy tried to relax. "Yeah. Just thinking about the fact that I have to give a speech tomorrow."

"You won competitions!" George piped up from the backseat. "It's the same thing."

She smiled briefly at him in the rear-view mirror. "Thanks. I wish."

There was an old farmhouse in Meryton with what Bing had described as "picturesque views" and a "rustic barn."

She had wanted to ask, "How rustic?" in a tone that implied her distaste, but thought better of it. She could be snobbish-she knew that-and she didn't want to be. Eli and James had grown up in a farmhouse themselves, albeit one that was nearly falling down. A pointed remark just wasn't worth it.

So Darcy had put on her red dress and a slash of red lipstick-Eli was fond of it-and tried not to catch her heels in the floorboard.

"We're almost done decorating," Bing said rapturously, tumbling towards her with streamers in hand. Apparently Bing's idea of a rehearsal dinner was more dinner than rehearsal-they had set up the canopy, but Darcy didn't see any attempt to recreate how the ceremony would go. All last minute; very Bing. "Isn't it beautiful?"

Bing could-and had-made the barn look about as much like a fairy wonderland as possible. For all her worries that she was overwhelming James with some ostentatious affair, it seemed more inviting than anything. But that was the wonder of Bing.

James, too, seemed keenly aware of the Wonder of Bing. He hugged Eli and then stood tentatively in front of Darcy.

Darcy felt something warm inside her; something that once might not have. "Congratulations," she said, and hugged him. "I'd threaten your life appropriately, but what would I do without you around to manage Eli?"

Eli chuckled. "As though you don't manage me perfectly well yourself. No offense, James."

Darcy arched an eyebrow at him. "That I do."

It was happy, for a little while-Bing in raptures, James shyly glowing, and Eli with that special and singular happiness in his eyes that only came from seeing James at peace. But the show must go on-how Darcy had always hated that turn of phrase-and so Bing and James were swept away to the head of the table and Eli was tugged away by his younger brothers.

It was less of a true dinner than a snack-bar, with the interested parties occasionally running over how things would work the next day. Eventually Darcy found herself sitting on a bench, alone, scanning the crowd and wondering, naggingly, if as maid of honor she was supposed to do something more.

"Can't ever seem to get a word in with you," Mr. Bennett said, sitting down beside her and propping a beer on his knee. His hands were shaking a little. Joel; that was his name. Joel Bennett.

"I'm here now," Darcy said. He used to hate her, call her stuck-up and a lot worse than that. But as soon as she had started dating Eli, his father fell in love with her too-with her money at least.

"He watches you like a hawk," he said, sighing. "Won't let me near you. It's stupid. We're family."

Darcy, having very little family left alive, defined it narrowly. She tried for noncommittal ( _Bing's dinner, don't ruin things for Bing_ ). "Hmm." The music was low and the lights were warm and this was what Bing wanted, but Darcy didn't want to be here. Didn't want to string together the complicated threads of humanity like this. It was too much.

"You've been with him for more'n a year. Still barely know you." His eyes were tired and perennially bloodshot, but he was still handsome, in a gone-to-seed kind of way. Lighter hair than Eli's, but the same jaw, the same nose.

"I take getting used to," Darcy said, as pleasantly as she could. She didn't like his closeness, or the way he always smelled of alcohol, and she didn't like the way Eli stiffened around him. Around his own father. A memory of her father darted back into her mind-Kenneth Williams, rich as God, people said, but kind. Kind. She could feel his big hand around her small one, could remember taking the horses out, could remember the boating trips-

"He hates me."

She snapped herself back to the present. Across the room, Eli had his back turned, which was probably (definitely) the only reason he hadn't come over here to rescue her from his father. Darcy stared at the lines of Eli's shoulders, and loved him. But she didn't know what to say.

"Worst and best of my sons. Don't tell him I said that. I've gotten more black eyes from that kid-and given more to him-than any of the rest."

 _He wants to love you_ , Darcy thought. _He wants to, you horrible, sad old man._ Aloud, she said only, "He is very happy tonight." And tried not to think of how Eli had said, when they left their own wedding, _now, at least, I only have to look at you_.

"He looks after James, always has," Mr. Bennett said. He took a swig of his beer, and his eyes were almost fond and faraway, trained on his eldest sons. "And now he's rich as hell. Begging your pardon." This last, with an obsequious grin in her direction.

Darcy drew back.

"Nah," he shook his head, slurring a bit. "Don't be like that. Family. Screw it, you're what he needs-exactly the kind of prissed-up bi-"

"Dad." Eli was suddenly there, and his voice was sub-zero in temperature. "What's up?"

"Your father was just telling me how perfect we are for each other," Darcy said coolly, standing up and slipping her hand around Eli's arm. "Which was really sweet of him. Two sons married in a month. You must be proud."

"Yeah," Mr. Bennett said, sheepishly.

"Can we go find Bing?" Darcy asked.

Eli nodded. "I'm sorry. I didn't realize he was-"

"It's OK," Darcy said. She patted his shoulder gently. She had never outgrown the habit of patting people awkwardly instead of doing what Bing would do naturally and embrace them outright. "He's your father. I can put up with him."

Eli laughed bitterly. "Just so you can see what thirty years of Jack Daniels and disappointment would do to me?"

She stopped short, heel catching in a little knothole. Ridiculous barn floor. "You're not like him."

Eli's dark eyes sparked with something that wasn't humor. "You sure about that?"

Darcy set her jaw and fixed him with a steely look. "Positive."

His grin was still a little sharp for comfort but he moved his arm around her waist and she liked that. "I guess it's like they say," he said, vaguely. "At some point people like _him_ "-and the words _and not like me_ might as well have been spoken-"Can't help themselves. It's never been good between us, I've told you that. Both arrogant, one a drunken slob and one inclined to be a smartass..." he made a little explosion sound with his mouth. "Bound to be dynamite."

"But James looks happy," Darcy said. James, who was marrying Bing. James, who had been nothing but good and patient, even when Darcy hadn't wanted to give him the benefit of the doubt.

"Yes," Eli said. "James is happier than I ever deserve to be."

Darcy chewed her lip. "But you are happy?"

His arm tightened around her. "Happier even than James."

Darcy smiled.

They had found Bing; she was enthusiastically talking to her mother and brothers. Bing's mother (both her parents, really) were good at enthusiasm; her brothers, less so.

Darcy smiled politely. "Harry. Cal."

Harry was bland and pleasant in his response. Cal's smile was tense. That wasn't surprising; Cal hated Eli with a flaming passion and Eli hated him back. But Cal had been the only one to be punched into a pool, for as much as that counted.

Small talk was almost impossible for Darcy, at the best of times. She tried to catch Bing's eye, but Bing was engrossed.

Cal and Eli, as usual, were sizing each other up.

"I guess congratulations are in order," Cal said, as though it pained him.

"We're touched," Eli said.

"Thank you," Darcy said calmly, for her part. "And to you. Bing told me that you're engaged. Is your fiancee here?"

"She couldn't come."

"I'm sorry, we would have _loved_ to meet her," Eli returned, with just a hint of insulting inflection.

Cal, of course, picked up on it. Darcy knew, wearily, that Cal would be insulted if Eli breathed. And Eli did a lot more than breathe.

Most of the time, in truth, Darcy found it entertaining. She had her own reasons to think ill of Cal Lee, and it was satisfying to see him cringe in front of Eli. But this was Bing's night, and she didn't want it to get out of hand.

"What's it like having your wife buy your suits for you?' Cal asked, going right for nasty without even a pit-stop at class.

Darcy tightened her fingers around Eli's arm, but he was perfectly composed.

"She knows what she likes."

Cal flushed angrily and turned away.

"See?" Eli murmured, a little smirk playing at the corners of his mouth. "Easy."

Bing was still preoccupied. Cal had disappeared. Darcy scanned the room for George, but didn't see him. "Let's go outside," she said.

 _ii._

Leave it to Bing to make something beautiful out of a Meryton barn. Although Eli, more than most people, had known that Meryton had its secrets. There were green places, fragrant woods, open fields and skies. He thought of the pipeline and his mood soured momentarily.

"You're frowning," Darcy said. "Is it Cal?"

They were standing outside, in the blue light of evening. Darcy was in red. Eli remembered where he was, and where he wasn't anymore, and smiled down at her.

"How could I be worried about Cal," he asked, "When you're wearing red?"

Darcy scraped her fingertips against the back of his neck and pulled him down for a kiss. "It's too bright a color for me, really," she whispered.

"Not by half."

She leaned against him and was quiet.

He had told her he was happier than James. And at this moment-at any moment when he was holding her-it was true. It was only when he had to let her go that the feeling faltered. It was only when he thought of his parents, of his brothers, of the fact that he had nothing to offer her...

She was the most clear-minded person he'd ever known. Why would she have married him, if she didn't know everything about him?

He needed to make something of himself. It came down to that. He couldn't be a half-way writer living on hopes and his wife's fortune. That was why he was going to teach.

Inside, he heard Bing laugh. He thought of James-of James the day after he proposed, driving downstate to tell Eli about it. A phone-call simply wouldn't do.

James and Bing would be blissfully happy because they were good. They would be too generous and kind, that was a given. But light made room for light.

"I'm worried about George," Darcy said. That sent Eli's self-doubts scattering for a moment, and reminded him of how much Darcy had given him of her trust. "He seemed broody today."

He assumed an innocent expression. "And broodiness doesn't run in the family, or anything."

Darcy jabbed him lightly between the ribs. "Hey."

"I think he's just going through a lot right now," Eli said. "Not in a bad way. Just...we got married. He has a serious girlfriend. He just finished his first year at Julliard. A lot."

"He's just seemed really happy lately." Darcy breathed out. "Seeing him looking serious again always gives me this little-alarm bell, I guess. I'm probably too paranoid."

"You're responsible. There's a difference." There were hints, as now, when Eli was reminded that she hadn't quite overcome the voices in her head. Neither had he. Life was life.

"I'm glad I married an expert on brothers."

"Hardly," Eli said. "Quantity of experience doesn't equal quality."

Darcy's voice was soft. "But you're so good with George. I'm grateful."

She was grateful. To him. Again, he didn't deserve it. Again, he couldn't help but fear the day when she found out. "When you're so sentimental, what am I supposed to do but kiss you?"

When they came back inside, Bing was nibbling on a mini quiche and crying.

"Who do I kill?" Darcy demanded, eyes darkening in a way that was both terrifying and, to Eli, deeply charming. Bing was startled.

"Oh, no! These are happy tears. Promise. I was just thinking about our vows."

Eli bit back a grin. "Good lord, Lee. Pull it together."

She hugged him, paused, hugged Darcy, and then finished her quiche. "We're going to go on the best double dates when we get back from England."

Across the room, Eli saw George. He squeezed Darcy's hand and left her with Bing. Halfway to where George was talking with Mark-of all the younger Bennett brothers, Mark was probably the least offensive to George's delicate sensibilities-he heard his mom calling his name.

"What's up? Wedding'ed out?" It was a sensitive topic, but he figured it was better to broach it rather than leave it.

"I've been out so much this month I might as well join the town book club," his mom said dryly. He thought that she didn't look unhappy, though. At least, he hoped she wasn't.

"They'll probably read Kafka, and you'll wish you hadn't."

"Ha. More likely they'll read some cheap paperback they all found on an airplane. This is Meryton."

"True."

"That's a nice suit," Mom said, tugging at his sleeve. "Did Darcy buy it for you?"

"Yeah." He had let the clothes thing go-Darcy said she hated shopping, but she seemed to like shopping for him. And yes, it was her credit card. It had felt...reasonable, not to fight it. Now, he wasn't sure. "Yes, Mom, she did."

"Hmm."

"That's a nice dress."

"Doesn't go with my chair. Nothing does." She ran a hand over her knees. "The lack of mother-son dance will be more obvious this time around, since Bing has a father."

"Mom..."

"I'm having a pity-party, Elijah. Don't spoil it."

"Alright." He sat down on a chair beside her. Checking in on George could wait. "Do you want some champagne with that?"

She didn't answer the question. "Your brother is so stupidly happy." Mom narrowed her eyes. "Are you?"

"I'd prefer not to be called stupid in any capacity."

"Still my son, I see." That brought a smile out of her. "Well, are you happy?"

 _Have you met Darcy_? wouldn't be the right thing to say. "I'm very happy, Mom." A pause. He ran his hands over his knees, echoing her movement a moment before. Little, mirroring tics. They'd always had them. She was his mother, after all. "That doesn't mean I don't miss you."

"I'm not happy," Mom said. "That doesn't mean I don't miss _you_."

"Dad's set on this pipeline thing," Eli said, gritting his teeth a little. "And with the contract set-but anyway, James and I are going to find you a place. Maybe it'll be for the best..."

She reached up and plucked at his lapel. "Will Darcy buy that too?"

He bit his lip.

"Whatever works, darling." Her eyes were unreadable, but it was from her that he'd learned that guarded expression in the first place. Eli felt the pit of his stomach drop a little.

Mom said, "You looked like you were on a mission, walking by here. Go on."

He went off in search of George. Bing had done a lovely job fitting out the barn, but Eli felt it was suddenly a little close. He wished he could go outside again, hold Darcy in his arms, and think of nothing else.


	6. for the advantage of both

"They were able to love each other, even as well as they intended." – _Jane Austen_ , _Pride and Prejudice_

 _i._

It was tempting—truly tempting—to open with, _"May it please the court."_ But there weren't enough lawyers present for the joke to land, and anyway, Darcy wasn't known by the general public for her humor.

Eli's speech had been all Eli—sparkle and wit and warm affection for James. Listening to him, you wouldn't know that he could see his father growing bleary-eyed, or the way his mother's smile didn't quite reach her eyes. Darcy didn't have his gifts of charm or levity. She didn't know how to put on a display or a disguise—and for Bing, she didn't want to.

She swallowed hard, and fixed her eyes on the rafters, where Bing herself had hung garlands of flowers.

"Bing asked me to…to stand by her, and that is the least I could do for someone who has been as faithful and kind as she has to me. But I'm afraid I'm not at all the right person to give the kind of speech that is worthy of her. Bing is the one who has a way with words. All I can hope to express is what a testament it is to who she is, as a person, that here I am—where I have no right to be—and here are so many people whose lives she has made better. Bing is unguarded in the best way. The only thing she guards is her right to love. She never lets anyone take it from her, no matter how much they rail against her generosity. And so, we are all here because Bing loves us. And although I am never one to concede defeat—James, you won. You won the best heart anyone could ever ask for, and I am happy—as happy as I can be—to say that you've won me over too. I know that you two will be happy together."

Bing cried. James beamed. There was clapping, and Darcy sat down and pleated the skirt of her dress between her fingers. It was blue, royal blue, and the flowers were yellow, because Bing wanted colors that looked like summer.

Eli reached over, under the table, and clasped her hand. But Darcy still felt a little jittery until the next milestone ticked by and the first dance started. Self-centered as it might be, she had had this nagging little feeling that too much attention had clung to her after the speech—Bing and James taking the floor returned that attention to its rightful place.

Bing was much shorter than James. So her head was tipped almost all the way back, with her halo of curls beginning to escape from the updo she'd threaded with flowers and pearls. James said something and Bing laughed. The whole world, Darcy sometimes thought, lived among a storm—surely she and Eli did, holding fast to each other, if to nothing else—but Bing and James seemed to have quite escaped the darkness.

It was over; Bing had her father-daughter dance but everyone else was invited up, too. Darcy knew they'd done it so that Mrs. Bennett wouldn't feel overly noticed. Eli led Darcy up to the floor, and she let herself relax in his arms, let the nerves go, remembered that there had been a time when she'd wanted this and it hadn't been real.

"That was a good speech, your honor," Eli said, pressing a kiss to her forehead.

Darcy shook her head. "It was awkward. But of course Bing was sweet about it. I—" She stopped short.

Eli stopped too, so they were standing still in the middle of the floor. "What?"

"I can't help feeling"—Darcy kept her voice low—"That I don't deserve to give that speech at all. I mean, I don't beat myself up over that too much anymore, but I was the one who tried to separate them...who almost ruined them—"

"And I almost ruined this," Eli said. He leaned down to press his lips softly to hers. "And maybe it's just because I'm given to self-aggrandizement, but I try not to dwell on it." He spoke lightly, almost teasingly. "I just think of myself as lucky."

"You are lucky," Darcy said, emboldened enough by his words and his nearness. She moved out of the typical waltz position, so that she could lace her fingers together behind his neck. His arms settled around her waist, holding her close. "Remember the first time we danced?"

Eli laughed. "God, I was so pissed off."

"I was dying," Darcy said. "You were touching me, and I could barely keep from passing out."

"Like I said," Eli said, his hands tightening a little, "Lucky."

The song changed, but they kept dancing. Darcy scanned the room.

"He's fine," Eli said, in her ear. He always knew she was looking for George.

"It's been almost three years."

"Yeah."

"They still haven't found her. Gemma." Darcy hated saying the name aloud, but weddings seemed to bring up everything inside her, ever part and parcel of the past.

"Are you worried she'll come back?" Eli asked. His voice had a hard edge to it; if there was anyone who hated Gemma as much as Darcy, it was Eli.

"I worry about everything."

Eli's gaze softened. "Darcy. That's over. It was...a rough time. A dark hour, you know? But it's done now."

He was right. Their parents aside, the Bennetts' futures were looking up in a way that they hadn't before, with the two oldest (and most reliable) brothers married. Gemma was gone. Levi Bennett had learned his lesson. And George was safe. Wasn't he?

Darcy leaned her head against Eli's chest. From across the dancefloor, she heard Bing's laugh. Worries aside, there was no doubt that Bing's day had been a perfect one.

Bing said as much before she left. Her dress was glinting like stars under the fairylights strung up; her cheeks were flushed. "James and I are going to leave," she said, "But I had to see you first. Darcy-oh, Darcy. Thank you. Your speech made me cry."

"I saw," Darcy said.

Bing clasped her hands. "This is my favorite day," she said. "Isn't that wonderful? To have a day that's your _favorite_ day? And you know that the only way it will be unseated is by another day that's more glorious than we can even imagine now."

Darcy said, "I'm so glad," and she was. It wasn't hard to be happy for Bing. Bing, standing on rough floorboards in glinting shoes—Bing, laughing with her mother and crying with her friends—Bing, living the life she was meant to live.

"It's because of you," Bing said.

"What?" Darcy was taken aback.

"You challenged me," Bing said, quietly, but with eyes full of feeling. "You challenged both of us. It made me work for something. And I haven't often had to work for anything."

"What I did—it was wrong," Darcy said. "Bing, I know you've forgiven me and told me to move on, but I don't want you to feel like you have to justify—"

"I'm not," Bing interrupted, waving her hands. "I'm not justifying. I'm thanking you for a gift that came out of something painful."

Darcy didn't know what to say.

Bing smiled. "We have to go," she said, "But I had to say that first." And she was gone, in true Bing fashion, in a flurry of cheers, with James' hand in hers, laughing and crying at the same time.

"I don't know how she does it," Darcy said.

Eli was nibbling on an extra piece of cake. "Does what?"

"Floats everywhere."

Eli laughed, running his tongue over the edge of his lip to catch a fleck of frosting in a way that held Darcy's attention. "Ha. I've always thought the same thing about James."

"Really?"

"No." His eyes were teasing. "James is much more the old man type. They'll balance each other out."

Darcy bit her lip. She still didn't know James as well as she should. She liked him immensely (and he liked her better than she deserved) but they were both the quiet, reserved half of their respective relationships. She wasn't always confident in bridging any gap like that.

"Do you want to go home?" Eli said, putting his arm around her shoulder.

Darcy wrinkled her brow. "You mean the bed and breakfast?"

"Yeah. Anywhere we are, with no one else around—it's home."

Darcy couldn't speak for a moment. Then she said, "Yes. Let's go home."

 _ii._  
It was after eleven o'clock when they got back, and George was yawning; Darcy told him to go to bed.

Eli saw her worrying her lip between her teeth. Fretting over George again.

"I'm going to check in with him," he said. "But you know, the kid's kind of studying at the best school for music in the world plus doing a pretty demanding independent study this summer. He's probably just worn out."

Darcy rubbed her neck. "I hope that's all it is."

The bed and breakfast, though the best Meryton had to offer, was nothing very grand. Their footsteps creaked on the uneven steps upstairs, and Eli felt a faint twinge of guilt. When had he become so snobbish about imperfect floorboards? Maybe he'd been away from Meryton too long...but then again, he had no desire to return.

Their room was pleasant enough. Darcy sighed deeply and sank into a chair, unstrapping her shoes. "I was looking forward to getting out of these."

Eli plucked ruefully at his tux. "Yeah. This might not be quite as bad, but still."

"I like it on you," Darcy said, a spark in her eye.

Eli grinned. "Really?"

She stood up and moved towards him, twisting her fingers in the heavy silk of his tie, so that it slipped out of its knot. "Really."

On the nightstand, his phone buzzed. Eli rolled his eyes. "This better not be James. Or Bing."

It was Levi. Eli picked up.

"What?"

"You busy?"

"I'm married."

"Right." A pause. Then—"Can you come outside for a second?"

"Why?"

Darcy was glaring at him. Eli gave her his most winsome look, but she was unmoved. She mouthed, _go talk to him_ , and Eli rolled his eyes.

"OK. Fine. I'm coming." He hung up. "I'm tired of family drama."

Darcy folded her arms. "He's your brother. Brothers are important."

Eli stared her down. "So is your fascination with my tie."

She tugged it out from under his collar and twirled it around her hand. "That will keep."

Eli dragged his feet leaving.

Levi was on the sidewalk outside.

"We could have done whatever it is on the phone," Eli said. But Levi looked fairly dejected, so he softened his tone a bit. "What's up?"

"I think this is it," Levi mumbled. "I think..."

Levi, mumbling and depressed, was never a good sign. Eli clenched his teeth. "What?"

"I think Dad's going to leave Mom when the house gets sold," Levi said, all in a rush. "I think he's going to take the money and leave her alone."

It shouldn't be a surprise. Eli had mulled over the possibility dozens of times in the past dozen years, and never more so than when Dad figured that he had a clear shot. All the clear shots of the past had failed utterly, so nothing had ever happened. But now-

"If that happened—James and I would take care of her," he said. "Honestly. I'm not going to let anything bad happen to Mom. And Dad sucks. He's always sucked."

"I guess," Levi said, still sounding desolate. "I guess I just...hoped he didn't suck _this_ much."

Which, right…this was why Levi had wanted to see him in person, why he hadn't been able to sleep, why they were standing in golden pools of lamplight, with moths fluttering like restless ghosts overhead. Levi, of all of them, had learned the truth about Dad last.

"Why don't you go stay with Cody tonight?" Eli suggested. "He'll probably be lonely, since James is gone."

Levi wiped his nose on the sleeve of his suit jacket. Eli suppressed an eyeroll. "OK."

"Everything else alright?"

"Mom misses you."

"Yeah."

"You're the only one she talks about, when she talks at all."

And there they were, the two favorite sons—one for each parent, and nothing at all to show for it, at least when it came to family hopes.

"Mom's complicated," Eli said. "The whole thing is. For now, just worry about your job, and go stay with Cody. You can always...text me, or call me, or whatever. You know that, right? You don't have to wait around for seeing me in person, loser."

"I _know_ ," Levi growled, any moment of sentimentality over—just as Eli had intended it. "Jerk."

Eli slapped him lightly on the side of the head. "Go see Cody."

He stayed outside for a moment after Levi had sauntered off. The streetlights flickered, and Eli sucked down a breath of night air, still a touch too summer-warm. Despite the prospects of certain members looking up in recent times, the Bennett family was unraveling with him and James gone. He'd look after Mom—that was a given—but _how_ was another question.

James was gone for two weeks. After that—yeah. They'd deal with it after that.

Eli climbed the rickety stairs for the second time that night, but his steps felt heavier.

Darcy was already in bed, skimming _The New York Times_ on her phone. She put it down when Eli came in. "What's wrong with Levi?"

"His ears are a little crooked and he's always been self-conscious about it," Eli deadpanned, taking off his jacket. He shook his head. "No. He's just—wanted to talk through some family stuff."

Darcy said, with a touch of hesitance he couldn't help but notice, "Do... _you_ want to talk about it?"

"Not tonight." Was he being evasive, or just trying to keep things light? Sometimes it felt like the same thing. He sat down and started unbuttoning his shirt.

Darcy's lips curved up into a smile. "If you stare off into middle-distance with a furrowed brow, you'll look like a Gucci ad right now."

Eli laughed and momentarily obliged. "I know you like it, but I'm never wearing a tux again."

"We'll see," Darcy returned calmly. She looked adorable in pajamas, unsurprisingly.

"Which means, you'll lawyer me into one."

"Exactly." And her smile, as usual, destroyed him.


	7. hope of a cure

**A/N: Warnings for this chapter: sexual harassment in the legal context; sexual exploitation; familial abuse...all of which are discussed, non-explicitly, and not shown.**

 _"Nobody who has not been in the interior of a family can say what the difficulties of any individual of that family maybe." – Jane Austen, Emma_

 _i._

The case wasn't getting easier. What had been a contentious series of delays and extensions had morphed into a countersuit for defamation.

Darcy, with her penchant for perfectionism, hadn't been thrilled that her client _had_ posted some inadvisably public Facebook comments about her lech of a boss, but she also wasn't completely made of stone. When Jennifer Lane sat across the table from her, dabbing at her eyes with a tissue, Darcy felt a strangely Bing-like urge to reach out and pat her hand.

"I won't let him get away with this," Darcy said firmly. "You weren't lying, and without falsity, there's no liability for you. I promise."

But the truth was, she was exhausted, and she'd not been feeling her best lately, and when she came home that night, she still had no idea what to do.

"George told me to your reminder of no work-after-nine-PM rule," Eli said tucking her hair behind her ear. Darcy looked up from where she was half-squinting, half-frowning-and full-on glaring-at a fan of documents.

"I know," she said. "But..."

"Darcy, you have to eat."

"I'm not allowed to eat," Darcy said, knowing full well that she was being stubborn, "Until I've had a breakthrough."

Eli stared at her. Then he picked up the documents. "No, you have to eat."

"Give them back."

He held them out of her reach. "Sorry, I'm taller."

Her glare was on him now. "I am not in the mood. Give them back."

"You will have them back, when you've eaten the dinner I've warmed up for you three times now."

Darcy chewed her lip and folded her arms. "This is not a defeat."

Eli's eyes twinkled. "I plead the Fifth."

"Not how that _works_ ," she muttered, but she stalked into the kitchen and ate. And no, she would most certainly _not_ admit it, but Eli was right. She'd been kind of queasy lately, but the salmon and fresh greens were surprisingly satisfying.

Eli curled up in the armchair beside her as she ate (on the couch; she was an adult, and she could do that if she wanted).

"Don't be mad," he said, all but batting his eyelashes at her.

"I'm not mad." Darcy twirled a spring of endive around her fork. "I'm just tired."

Eli propped his chin on his hand. "What's up with the case?"

"That scumbag is suing her for defamation, because she wrote on her Facebook page that he was trying to cheat on his wife, and he has just submitted a sworn affidavit denying it."

"He's lying," Eli said.

"Yeah, but I've been digging at the company today and there aren't any other complaints against him by any other female employees."

"What about others?" Eli shrugged. "He's got to have a pretty big social circle, and with the kind of ego you've described, he's probably hitting on a lot of women."

Darcy was silent.

"What?" Eli raised an eyebrow.

"I'm an idiot," said Darcy.

Eli rolled his eyes. "Come _on_. You're freaking brilliant. Don't fish for compliments, because I'll certainly give them to you."

Darcy's lips did twitch into a smile at that, but she still sighed. "Ever since he slapped us with this countersuit, I've done nothing but look at his business," she said. "Because that's where my mind goes first."

"You've got a lot on your plate," Eli said. He reached out and took her hand. "That's why there's the nine PM rule."

Darcy nodded. "Yeah," she said. "I...guess."

Eli stood up, took her plate and fork and carried them at the kitchen. "Alright, that's all the legal analysis we're doing tonight."

"Hey," Darcy said. "You told me that I had to eat, and then I could have my documents back."

Eli just blinked lazily at her. "Did I say that? Funny, because you're the one who taught me that not everything is a negotiation."

Negotiation or not, the next week found Darcy a breakthrough. And at Friday's settlement conference, she was calm, straight-backed, and out for blood.

Harry Dennis was a confident, square-jawed man with teeth that were too white in a smile that was too wide. It grew wider when he grew angrier, and if Darcy was frightened by boorish, bullying men, she might have been frightened by him.

But Darcy didn't work that way.

Dennis's lawyer was rail-thin, bespectacled, and wearing a very expensive suit.

"We're here to discuss a solution that will be agreeable to everyone," he said, not sounding at all like he believed it.

"And what might that be?" Darcy folded her hands, the tip of her pointer ghosting lightly over the prongs of her engagement ring, and lifted her eyebrows.

"Your client drops her suit and issues a public apology."

"We have a response to your defamation suit," Darcy said coolly. "But it doesn't involve settling. Or an _apology_ , of all things."

Dennis barked a laugh around the edges of that smile. "You've been combing through my entire company, digging for dirt on me-we've turned over all the files, and you haven't found anything."

"We have not found a record of harassment complaints in you company," Darcy said, with a smile of her own. "You see, Ms. Lane's Facebook comments referenced your infidelity to your wife. _That_ is the statement that you contested in your sworn affidavit. So the fact we've uncovered no evidence that there were other harassment cases at the company is completely irrelevant."

"Are you conceding your claim?"

"Hardly." Darcy smiled thinly. "The trouble with sworn affidavits, Mr. Dennis—perhaps your lawyer didn't inform you, since you seemed so eager to pick up the pen—is that you sign them under penalty of perjury."

"I'm aware."

"I'm glad." Darcy opened her folder. "Do you recognize this photo?"

"It's a picture of me and my wife at a social event."

"Yes," Darcy said, calmly. "It's publicly available on _your_ Facebook account, before you even ask."

"And what relevance does this have, exactly?" The thin lawyer was starting to look a little stiffer than usual.

"Nina Elliot," Darcy said. "The woman standing next to Mr. Dennis, on the other side?"

"She's a family friend," Dennis said. His smile was almost impossibly wide.

"She doesn't look as comfortable as a family friend would, standing next to her, like that."

"Your point?"

"My point is that Nina Elliot doesn't consider Mr. Dennis a friend." Darcy rested her hands against the table. "And for that reason, she's provided some helpful information regarding Mr. Dennis's extracurricular activities."

"That's a load of bull," Dennis said, shark-toothed.

"She has dozens of unsolicited messages and images that you've sent her,' Darcy said coolly, "Of a sexual nature."

The room was deathly silent.

Then the other lawyer said, " _This_ is harassment, Ms. Williams."

"It's Mrs. Bennett, now, actually," Darcy said. "And _this_ is grounds for a perjury charge."

"That's preposterous!"

Darcy stood up. She liked to be taller. "Since your lawyer seems unable to advise you on this, Mr. Dennis-don't sign your name to a sworn affidavit that states you haven't sexually propositioned women other than your wife a mere three months after you've done it." She paused, and straightened her jacket almost imperceptibly. "Is it a little warm in here? You look warm."

They paid twice their original offer, and Darcy left the settlement agreement at the exact center of her senior partner's desk.

She spent the rest of the day in and out of the ladies' room, vomiting at the least provocation, without being able to figure out why.

 _ii._

"Cheers," Eli said, clinking glasses with Fitz.

"It isn't my first settlement," Darcy said, but she was smiling.

"It's a huge deal," George said, worshipfully. And then, "Darcy, are you going to drink that?"

"No," she said, setting her champagne down. "No, my stomach's been kind of off today. Probably a bug."

"Can I have it then?" George asked. "I'm almost old enough."

"You're still a year away from being old enough," Darcy said. "So the answer is most certainly _no_."

George pretended to pout and then snagged another handful of potato chips from the bowl Fitz offered him.

"When you said a celebration, I thought there'd at least be some Camembert," Darcy said, when George passed the bowl to her. They were all sitting, cross-legged, around the coffee table at the center of the living room, halfway through a rather embattled game of Parcheesi. "Not sour-cream-and-onion."

"They're your favorite," Fitz said.

"Really?" Eli asked, forcing Darcy to meet his gaze.

"They're better than Doritos," she conceded. "But really, Fitz. I'm not hungry."

"Fine." Fitz munched on a mouthful himself. "George, it's your move."

Eli watched Darcy laugh, even come close to relaxing a little, and thought that while everything looked good on her, victory was dazzling. Of course, the recent weeks hadn't shown _him_ much favor—he was slogging along with writing that felt secretly, naggingly pointless; he was caught in a dozen dead-ends with his family; he was one of those New York City jackasses pumping iron at the gym instead of fixing cars or doing _something_ useful.

Hell, he'd never have thought he'd miss fixing cars.

Of course, Darcy made it all worth it. Darcy, powerful and fierce and lovely, made everything worth it. And at times like this, appreciating the quiet of family camaraderie without the pain and taint of dysfunction, he could remind himself how much happier he was now.

"You want some more champagne?" Fitz asked him, when the game was finished. (George had won.) (Darcy had let him.)

"I'd actually like a beer."

"We have that too," Fitz said. Eli trailed him into the kitchen and Fitz swung open the refrigerator, leaning into the pale light and poking around. "Hah. There is some Camembert. Don't tell her."

"I won't," Eli said. "But seeing how the refrigerator is meticulously organized, I'm pretty sure not much gets past her."

"I know I keep saying this," Fitz said, in a low tone, "But...man. You have really changed things for her. You have. I know you know it, but she is just-she is so much happier now. And as much as she pretends otherwise, she deserves to be happy. More than anybody I know, except maybe George."

"I know," Eli said.

"We've always been close," Fitz continued, answering an unspoken question. "You've met the extended family—well, some of it, anyway. Rich, intense, and rich again. My parents are well-meaning, but a bit overly...everything. I liked these two misfits since the first summer we spent up in Cape Cod. George was a baby, and Darcy was eight, and she carried him _everywhere_ they let her. She was really skinny, too, and she was just like, staggering under the weight of this fat baby. But she never dropped him."

Eli smiled. "I was like that with my younger—youngest brother. Then he grew into an annoying little shit, you know?"

"I can imagine, since he's related to you," Fitz said, slapping him on the shoulder with a laugh. "Seems he's turning out OK, though."

"He's turned it around." They both knew why.

Fitz grabbed his keys off the counter. "I'm headed out," he said. "Make sure Darcy gets some sleep. That's part of your job too, you know."

"Will do." Eli saw him out. When he came back into the living room, George was sprawled out on the couch, one foot dangling, with the blue light of his phone glowing on his face.

"Where's Darcy?" Eli asked, hands in his pockets.

"Brushing her teeth." George shut his phone off. "I think she has a stomach bug. She looked kind of green today." He had a worried expression on his face.

"I'm sure it's not a big deal," Eli said, though he himself had every intention of investigating it. "Well, I'm heading up. Good ni—"

"Wait," George said, sitting up. He sounded almost urgent. "Eli, uh, can I—talk to you? Just, uh. A sec. A minute. Whatever."

Truth be told, Eli had been waiting for this ever since George had seemed a little off at Bing's wedding, which was a few weeks ago now. He'd told Darcy they should just keep an eye on George and he'd come to them in his own time. In that way, George was much more like James than Levi. Levi, you couldn't leave alone. It ended—it used to end—in disaster. But as long as George was looked after, he'd come clean eventually.

"What's up?" Eli asked, taking the other end of the couch.

"I think I have to break up with Mina," George said, tensely.

"Whoa. Why?"

"Because...she really seems to like me."

Eli allowed himself a slight smile. "Well, that certainly wasn't on my list of top five guesses."

George was chewing his lip. The furrow in his brow made him look more like Darcy.

"I slept with her," he said, all in a rush. "I slept with Gemma. You know that, right?"

Eli said steadily, "Yes, I put that much together."

"Mina doesn't know," George said. In the half-light, his eyes were a little watery, but he was doing his best to keep his voice from shaking. "She doesn't know anything about Gemma, and I just…"

"Now that you know she's serious, you're not sure you should tell her or not."

"Yeah." George twisted his hands together. "I just—it's only been three years. And even if it was ten years, I'd—still remember. I just, I can't help thinking about her sometimes. A lot of the time. And I thought it was getting better but—"

Eli interjected, as gently as he could. "It wasn't your fault."

"I should have known that—"

And no, George shouldn't have known. There was nothing he could have known, seventeen and alone and on the brink of darkness, that would have stopped him from giving in to someone like Gemma, who knew all the right strings to pull. "Can I tell you something?" Eli asked. "It's something I haven't even told your sister."

That perked George up a bit; he'd known it would. Curiosity was all-engrossing.

"When I was twelve, my dad came home drunk, and…not happy drunk. He started throwing stuff and we were scared. I ran over to Charlie's and I stayed there for two days. And my mom was really worried, because she didn't know where I was." Sometimes he wondered if that was the only thing she'd been worried about, but Eli wasn't going to say that out loud. He paused, and ran his hands over his knees. "Anyway, James was fifteen, so he was a little older, but still. He was a kid. So the next time, when my dad seemed like he might hit one of us, James clocked him one right in the left eye—and he went out cold." He laughed, without humor. "I thought James had killed him for a second."

George's eyes were saucer-wide. In some ways, George was still pretty sheltered, despite everything. And one of those ways was that he couldn't imagine _family_ being like that. In that way, George was damn lucky. "You never told Darcy about that?"

Eli shook his head. "No. That's not the story Darcy doesn't know."

George leaned forward.

"You can imagine I was pissed at my dad about that, for a long time." _And I still am_. "Anyway, when _I_ was fifteen, I got into this really huge fight with him, and—I was working at this convenience store in town. I was so mad, and I did—I did what I sometimes would do, which was do the same kind of crap I was mad at him for. Or try to, anyway." He ran a hand through his hair and leaned back against the couch. "I went down to the store that night, and I broke in—broke a window—and I stole a six-pack of beer and drank the whole thing."

"The whole thing?" George said, in a hushed tone of awe that would be alien to most people within shooting distance of being twenty-one.

"The whole thing," Eli said.

"Were you…really drunk?"  
"Yeah. I was a lightweight, and I chugged them all down in about an hour." Eli chuckled. And maybe there was a little humor this time. "It was really gross beer too, man. It tasted like piss."

"What happened?"

"I didn't end up in jail, that's what happened. But only because of James. Thank God the store didn't have security cameras, though it did after that. Anyway, James found me, and cleaned everything up, and—he didn't say anything. But all of a sudden, even though I was completely smashed, I remembered that when James was fifteen, he protected us. And here I was, messing up his life even more. Maybe going jail. My mom—my mom would flip if that happened to me, and then we…wouldn't even have one parent." He hoped that wasn't the wrong thing to say, what with George not having any, but he hoped George would understand.

"Then what did you do?" George asked.

"I started sobbing. Like a baby." Eli sighed. "Most embarrassing moment of my life, probably. Well, other than those fifty times I was a total di—jerk to your sister."

"You weren't."  
"I was. She's just sparing you the details." Eli locked eye contact. "I told you that story because I want to know—I pulled some shit, OK? Cause my dad failed as a parent, and I didn't know how to deal with it. Because I was a kid. And you…have the best sister in the world, but you two have been through a lot, and you were in a rough place. So it doesn't mean that the best version of yourself would have done that, but it also doesn't mean that it makes you anything less because you did. You were a kid. I was a kid. And I lashed out in a stupid way, and you didn't even do that. You had somebody come for you, for reasons that weren't your fault, and you gave in because you were in that spot where you didn't know where to go."

George nodded, wordlessly, for a moment.

"You wanted to know about Mina," Eli said. "You don't have to tell her. Because we don't owe anyone an explanation of what we suffered when we were kids. Alright? You don't have to do that. But if you get to a place with her where you want to tell her, where you feel like it's something you want her to help you with, you can. Because you don't have to be ashamed of what Gemma did to you."

"OK," said George, and he let out a long, shaky breath.

"You should go to bed," Eli said. "You have a meeting with your advisor tomorrow, don't you?"

"Yeah." George stood up. He held out his hand, all formal. He was a Williams, after all. "Thanks, Eli."

Eli pulled him into a hug. "Any time," he said. "I'm already swimming in brothers. You're not as annoying as the rest of them."

Darcy was reading in bed when he came up.

"I thought you were sleeping," Eli said.

"I only go to sleep when I'm tired," Darcy said, pointedly.

Eli grinned. "Does that mean what I think it means?"

She raised an eyebrow, and then grew serious. "What kept you so long?"

"Just chatting with George." Eli started to unbutton his shirt.

"Is he OK?" That little worried edge crept into Darcy's tone.

Eli allowed himself a smile. A warm one. "He's more than OK. He's going to be great."


	8. an increasing attachment

_"You want nothing but patience." – Sense and Sensibility_

 _i._

At just past seven in the morning, Darcy was vomiting again.

"You really are sick," Eli said, his voice all concern—and maybe a little touched by fear, too. If there was one emotion Eli tamped down more than any other, it was fear. Darcy hated to think she might be the source of it. But—was he still oblivious to the possibility she had begun considering last night?

"I'm…" She was going to say, _I'm OK_ , but that wasn't all of it. She ran the back of her hand over her lips and Eli was at her side in a moment, dampening a towel.

"Here. Wash your face."

"It's alright."

He had an arm around her waist, but keeping his hand off her stomach, avoiding pressure. "You should call into work."

Darcy sat down on the edge of the bed. "Eli, I think we need to talk."

His hair was wild, making him look more boyish than usual. "What do you mean?"

Darcy ran the edge of her teeth over her lip. She felt like she was on the edge of a precipice, rocking experimentally. "I don't think this is some sort of—passing thing. I think—I think I need to get take a pregnancy test."

Eli sat down beside her. She thought— _she_ feared—he looked shaken. He said nothing for a long moment, and then he said., "I guess we should have been expecting it."

The world crumbled beneath her feet. "I thought you wanted—" she said, and the words came out choked.

Eli was startled, turning towards her. Startled and pale. "Darcy," he said—"Darcy, I'm not—" He wrapped a hand around hers. "I do want," he said. "I want this. We wanted this, come what may, we want our own family. I'm only a little—disoriented. Surprised. You know, that it could be happening now. It's stupid of me."

"It's stupid of _me_. That I didn't guess at first." She couldn't breathe a sigh of relief, not yet. It wasn't a plan that would be sensible to the world. She was a career-woman, and an heiress, and she hadn't needed a husband or a family.

(Only she had. Oh, how she _needed_.)

Eli said, "I love you." Whispered, it really.

Darcy whispered back, "Are you scared?"

"I'm terrified."

And somehow, that admission lightened the weight in her chest. She leaned against him, tired and still a bit queasy, twisting her fingers in his t-shirt. "It could be nothing," she said. "I won't know until I take the test, and have an appointment, and—"

Eli hushed her with a kiss. That was always an effective remedy. Then he said, "So you'll call into work."

Darcy shook her head. "No. I couldn't possibly. I haven't given any advance notice, and I'm not really sick. This was just a bout." She raised her eyebrows meaningfully when he seemed ready to protest more. "Truly, Eli. I like normality."

It wasn't the whole truth, and she prayed the half-truth wouldn't hurt him. Because, stronger than ever, roiling with the uneasy depths within her, was the wish to never go back to work at all. She didn't have to. But as much money as she had, she'd never wanted it to be the most powerful force in her life. She'd made a promise to herself. A promise to make something of Dorothy Jane Williams, married or not, mother or not.

 _Mother_.

Eli wasn't the only one who was terrified. Darcy did what she had long done; she stood up, and stood tall. "I need to get dressed," she said. "I think I could keep some toast down. Will you make me some? Please?"

Eli softened for that please. Sometimes, in her own self-reflection, she forgot her own powers. He kissed her again, lingeringly, and then went downstairs.

Darcy felt weak, and tired, and the tears suddenly smarted in her eyes. She and Eli had married with open eyes…they had wanted children, and Darcy had said, _come what may_. And now the moment might well be here, and she was running over a litany of her own faults in her mind.

Eli had put those faults to rest before. Eli had reminded her of what her parents had praised. Eli had set it all to rights, but Darcy had many years practice in scattering the pieces again. The outside was always what had mattered. But a shell of a mother—just as a shell of a wife, or of a sister—wouldn't be enough.

To be a mother, she wondered, did you need a mother? She had George, and Fitz, and now, more than anyone, she had Eli—but she didn't have a mother anymore. The thought of her mother-in-law crossed her mind temporarily; she shuddered. Then she was ashamed of shuddering. Eli's mother, sharing his brows and the sharp lines of his smile—Darcy was sure she shouldn't feel as she did about the woman who might remind others, at least, so much of the man she loved.

But the thought of reaching out for help—reaching out _at all_ —was starkly unattainable.

And that left no one, really. Of course, she would tell Bing at once, wouldn't she? But her stomach twisted again and Darcy sagged back, setting teeth against teeth. It was early, it was late, it was all blending into uncertainty and silence.

 _One step at a time_ , she told the wan reflection in the mirror.

For now, that step was a pregnancy test.

 _ii._

Of course, Darcy went to work. She teetered a little in her heels and then drew her shoulders up, tight and tense in that old familiar stricture of pain and precision, and it made Eli want to hold fast to her. Only that meant holding her _back_ , and he couldn't do that, so he kissed her forehead and told her that she needed to leave work early if she was sick again.

And that left Eli where it always left him—putting in the day without much meaning to be found outside the hours of Darcy's return. They had started packing— _he_ had started packing, since she'd been busy with her settlement—for the move upstate. Half-upstate. It was supposed to happen this weekend.

George was at his internship. Fitz was at Hunsford School. And in this end-of-summer time (so different in city than in country), aside from his self-imposed duty of writing, Eli could do anything he liked. After all, there was money enough. He thought of trophy wives, blonde and sleek, on the tabloid covers.

Had he, Eli, become a trophy husband? Eli of years past would have sneered at it. Eli of year present didn't want to accept it, and laughed at it despite the inward twinge of discomfort. He wouldn't have wanted that life for Darcy, couldn't ask for these roles to be reversed. But try as he might to throw himself into his work, he had always been practical at heart. And his efforts now? Anyone could see that they were redundant.

The clock ticked relentlessly through the morning hours. Nobody called; even his brothers hadn't been texting him so much since he married. It was as though he wasn't needed anymore. He had cut himself out of his old life, and the wound, it seemed, had healed.

He wondered if what he wanted was to go home, prodding at that scabbed-over wound. If he wanted to find his place again among people and memories that he could more easily scorn.

The floor didn't creak beneath his footsteps here. It was too new, too expensive. Eli ran a hand over his face.

Why this was flaring up in him today was something else, too. Was it a secret hope that Darcy _would_ stop working, when— _if_ —a baby came?

If Darcy was pregnant, she should rest for a day. She'd been gray this morning, positively ill. But once again—as always—she had held herself to a standard of her own making.

He stared out the window—he wandered, he paced. He was supposed to be packing. He was supposed to be preparing and planning to start a job that would pay only for his own dignity.

If Darcy was pregnant…

Eli scrubbed a hand over his face. He needed out of here, out of this place. He needed to take Darcy with him, away from the weight and crush and ruin of the city. They needed to start all over again, in some sphere that was completely distinct from either of their own past lives.

Eli was, in general, clever enough to know when he was being rather insensible, so he called Uncle Will.

"Eli!" Uncle Will was perennially calm, and yet somehow always happy to hear from his nephews. Which was odd, because Bennetts were no known complement to calm and quiet.

"I'm walking the walls," Eli said. He didn't say anything about Darcy being pregnant because she might not be, and even though Uncle Will was discreet, it just—it had to wait.

"This newlywed life wears in its welcome fairly quickly, doesn't it?" Uncle Will said mildly.

"I love her."

"I know."

Eli said, a little desperately, "That should be enough."

"Love is everything," Uncle Will agreed. "But it needs light to grow, the same as any other living thing."

Eli was a writer. Sometimes, even, a poet. At the moment, though, he felt strangely impervious to metaphor. "What are you saying?"

"I'm saying you can't become a shadow because it's easy to fall into uselessness."

Eli cursed Uncle Will mentally for being so damnably perceptive. Even the silence on the other end of the phone sounded knowing. At last, Eli said, "Look, I'm not Dad. I'm not going to pretend I'm really some hotshot with great prospects. She married me, and she doesn't…need me to make money, or run things, or anything like that. And I want to be fine with that, because I married her knowing that, but I'm starting to wonder where Dad started as opposed to where he's finishing."

"He started selfish and ended selfish," Uncle Will said quietly. "But it looked a lot like pride and gusto at the beginning, where it only looks pathetic now."

"Do you think I'm like that?"

"No."

"So you're saying everything's fine?" The edge of hope in his tone made him sound like a little kid, and he knew it and disliked it, even if Uncle Will wouldn't chide him for it.

"It doesn't sound like everything's fine, exactly," Uncle Will said. "But Eli, turning into your father isn't the only…"

Eli cut him off, almost savagely. "What the hell is that supposed to mean?"

Uncle Will was quiet. Then he sighed. "I'm just saying, you have a lot pent-up. Darcy has a stressful life, and so do you, in very different ways. You know about those different ways—you learned about those ways, getting to know each other—but the truth is, you still have to learn how to live those separate lives together. That's all."

Eli was sorry for snapping, but like the Bennett he was, he didn't know how to say it. Instead, he said, "Thanks, Uncle Will. It helps. It really does."

He spent the afternoon packing boxes, reflecting on Uncle Will's metaphors. Love, Eli hadn't doubted—not since that first perfect moment when he and Darcy fell into each other's arms at last, on Netherfield hill. But light? He glanced about the room, a touch of an ironic smile on his lips. There was light enough through these high bay windows. It filled the room with four or five shades of golden color, and did nothing to warm him.

 _There has to be another way_.

He mulled over that. Once he would have consulted James, or even Mom, but he was far away from them now, and James had his own wife, his own life…

Eli prepared a whole platform of thoughts, but all of them left his head when Darcy got home. She was home early; usually George was back first.

He heard her coming upstairs. She was walking slowly. Eli's heart was beating high and fast.

The door opened.

"Did you—" The words wouldn't quite form their way to a sentence.

Darcy nodded. She was pale, but she was smiling.

Eli crossed the room in a few quick strides, and took her in his arms.


	9. all this hanging on my mind

**A/N: if you are ever in need of content warnings, there is something in this chapter (not sexual or violent) that you should be aware of. I can't warn for it without it being a spoiler, so please scroll to the end of the chapter if you need to.**

 _"We find comfort somewhere." – Mansfield Park_

 _i._

"We're going to have to tell people, you know," Eli said. He had paint on the back of his neck, and speckling his hands. The kitchen wall was half its old white, half a pale fresh green.

Darcy liked green.

It was Darcy's fault that that they were painting at all—or really, that Eli was painting, while she unpacked their belongings in other parts of the house, since the paint fumes still made her feel a bit queasy. Her morning sickness, though, had been much better of late.

"I like having secrets with you," she said. It was a bit evasive, for her.

Eli wiped his hands on his jeans, then tucked them in his pockets. "Is that all it is?"

Darcy chewed her lip, uncertain of how to answer. She felt a little faint. Nausea, if that's what this was, was a good sign, though. _A good sign._ "I don't know. I just like to do things by the book." She paused, then added, "I have an appointment tomorrow, and then we'll see how it's coming along."

"It?" Eli's mouth tilted in a teasing smile. "Try he or she. Your robot DNA only makes up half of our child, you know."

Darcy glowered at him, but the effect was kind of lost, because, nausea or no, she was smiling back at him. "Yes. He or she. We will see how he or she is doing—though it's much too early to know about that. And then we'll tell everyone else."

In point of fact, they had already told George, who was ecstatic. It was unavoidable, seeing as he lived with them—

Well, he _had_ lived with them. Life, as known for the first months of their marriage, was about to end. It was the last week of August; Eli started teaching tomorrow, and the house was nowhere near ready, but change was in the air. So was paint. Darcy coughed slightly.

During the weekdays, at least for the present, it was going to be just George and Darcy again.

She was married, and she was pregnant, but she was also a lawyer and a sister. And Eli wasn't just a husband, but also a brother and a son and someone who needed to be his own leader. On paper, Darcy supposed, they weren't marriage material. But for once, what was on paper didn't matter.

"I'm sorry," Darcy said, and sighed, leaning back against the couch, which was covered by a drop-sheet.

Eli's brow creased. "Sorry? For what? Making me paint our new kitchen all by myself?"

They could have hired painters, but Eli wouldn't have wanted to. Darcy knew without asking. "I _am_ sorry about that," she said. "Though it does show off your muscles to advantage."

"Not quite so well as playing pool." His eyes glinted.

"No, not quite so well as that." She grinned and then winced at the scent of the paint. "Shoot. Can we…go outside for a sec?"

"That's what we have a yard for," Eli said. "Feel like puking?"

"I haven't for a week," she said. "Thank goodness. Still, I feel a bit—nauseous. Not terribly."

"It could be the paint."

"It's not _just_ the paint," she reminded him.

They were almost in the country. The air didn't taste like city air. There were trees here, raising their arms to the wind; there were flowers that Darcy had no idea how to care for. Was she supposed to? She didn't think Eli would want to hire gardeners.

It was a sweet little place. White shingles, black shutters, a generous yard and a graveled drive behind a row of poplars. Darcy had paid for it in cash without even thinking about it. If that was rankling with Eli, he hadn't shown it.

"I'm going to try to—uh, do more than weekends," she said. George was old enough to be on his own, now, and Fitz had hinted that he was willing to move into the apartment full-time again if Darcy wanted him to.

Eli said, "You don't have to. The commute is going to be too much. Especially with this." He pulled her close to him and curved his hand against her stomach. She wasn't showing much yet; with her slim frame and business suits, too, it was hard to tell.

"Yeah, but…this is our house. Our home," she corrected. The word had more meaning than either of them could really fathom, at this point. Darcy had title on Block Island, in Manhattan, and on the big family estate up in Connecticut, her childhood home—she hadn't been there since Christmas. _They_ hadn't been there much together, at all. It was too hard to explain to Eli. It brought the wealth and memory too close for comfort.

 _Another day, another year, another conversation_. All of it had left them with this, a sweet little Cape Cod that was still more than most people could afford.

"And we're just getting started," Eli said. He was squinting at the afternoon sun. "Darcy, we just have to keep going. I'll paint the kitchen, and one or both of us will learn how to cook—really cook—and we'll figure it out. Because I love you."

"And I love you," she said." She leaned into him, and shut her eyes. If she stopped plotting and planning and worrying, surely, she would be alright. They could do this.

"I wish we could stay here tonight," Eli mused.

"So do I," Darcy said, "But—"

"The paint," Eli finished. "No, it's fine. A few days of leaving early in the morning won't kill me."

Darcy tilted her face up to look at him, at the line of his jaw and the way his hair was curling in last of August's heat. "So, you're going to meet me at the doctor's tomorrow?"

"I wouldn't miss it for the world. I want some first-hand knowledge of the little cyborg you have in there." His eyes were teasing.

"You _have_ firsthand knowledge," Darcy pointed out. "And you're right. We do need to tell people." She felt a little tingle of giddiness, imagining how Bing would react. Darcy, _giddy_. Love really could do anything.

When they returned to the city, she found out that George agreed.

"I feel weird being the only outsider who knows," he said, shutting the lid of the piano smoothly. He'd been practicing for a long time; she could tell from the stiff way he moved his fingers.

"You're not an outsider," Darcy said. She wanted to ruffle his hair, but he really was getting too old for that.

"Still. Fitz and Bing and all of Eli's people should know."

Darcy nodded. "I just…have a hard time making announcements. Even congratulations can feel like scrutiny. You know?"

George nodded. Then he stood up, and hugged her. George had never been one to shy away from affection, the gesture touched Darcy all the same. "I can't wait to be an uncle," he said. "The little cyborg is going to be the greatest kid ever."

"Eli _told_ you that?"

George laughed. In the half-light, he looked grown up. "Yeah. Eli told me."

When Eli climbed into bed beside her that night, she nestled up against him, tucking her always-cold hands against his chest.

"It's still summer," Eli said. "How are you so icy?"

"Come now, my iciness was the first thing you noticed about me."

"True." He laughed; it was almost as though she could see his smile in the dark. He kissed her, and she kissed him back, but then she pressed her fingertips against his lips. "You have to get up early tomorrow, remember?"

"You _always_ have to get up early," he pointed out. Eli was never too tired for a debate.

"I'm used to not sleeping."

"I'm a writer," he said, a trifle indignant. "A scholar. We're notorious night-owls."

"You snore a good deal for a night-owl."

"Don't tempt me to avenge my honor," Eli teased, and Darcy elbowed him gently in the ribs.

"I mean it. I'm going in especially early tomorrow so I can get some work done before the doctor's."

"And I am once again a working man."

"You've always been a working man," she whispered, but night-owl or not, he was already asleep.

 _ii._

At the last second, he ditched the jacket. It wasn't _quite_ that kind of a job, and anyway, he was too young. Not yet thirty. There'd be time enough yet for leather elbow patches.

He had twenty-four students for a freshman literature class. They were mostly unenthused and lethargic, texting under and over their desks and generally just not caring that much about the thin copy of _Ulysses_ Eli had assigned.

But Eli was a Bennett, and that meant several things. First, it meant that he didn't give up easily when it came to pride; second, it meant that he'd put up with his share of smug, shiftless adolescents.

All in all, the first class went about as well as he might have expected. Two or three participated voluntarily; the rest had to be called on. Some were glazed over; others were listening. And Eli could hold forth to his heart's content.

 _Another victory like that and we are done for. So, what do you think it means?_

He assigned what the students likely thought was an unreasonable amount of reading for the next class and leaned against the desk watching them file out. He was a professor. Well, almost. You needed tenure and all that. But for now, he could revel.

When he crossed the campus, he checked his watch. He was on time; if he left now he should be able to get down to meet Darcy at the doctor's, and ooh and ah over the grainy gray film that held their whole future.

His phone buzzed. It was a text, from Dad. Eli swiped the screen, frowning.

 _911\. It's your mother._

There were few things that could put him gear like that. He broke into a run, he cleared the guardrail around the parking lot, he careened into traffic and felt like his heart would never stop jumping.

 _Come on, Mom—not now. Please, not now._ Should he have told her about the baby? Would it have helped? He hadn't been there for her lately. He'd barely called. He hadn't been the lifeline she'd always needed him to be—

She used to call him her reason to live. _Come on, Mom. Come on._

His phone was ringing, now. Blasted thing. He fumbled around in the cup-holder and answered. His hand was shaking, but there wasn't anybody there to see. "James. What the hell?"

James sounded weary, not frantic. "Did Dad text you?"

"Yeah. What's going on? Where's Mom?"

"Mom's fine. Physically, I mean. They just had a big fight."

" _That's_ why Dad texted me 911?" The wind was all but knocked out of him.

"He realized afterwards it might have given you a...different impression."

"Does he want points for self-awareness? Are you fu—"

James sighed, interrupting him. "You're driving upstate right now, aren't you?"

"Sure as shit, James. That's what a text about Mom can do. Pass that along to Dad, will you? Preferably with a fist to his teeth."

"I'm really sorry," James said. James, who had nothing to be sorry for except ending up in this screwed-up family. "You must have just aged ten years."

Eli blew out his breath. "I can practically see the gray hairs coming in. OK. Well, while I curse Dad to infinity, again, what's going on?"

"Dad found a new place. And Mom…well, she says she's not going with him."

Eli supposed he should have seen it coming. But he was doing an illegal U-turn in a four-lane, so maybe there were other things he should have seen coming, too.

"You know," Eli said at last, harkening back to a conversation that felt like years ago, "Levi thought Dad was going to leave _her_."

"Could have gone either way." And there it was, a truth he and James had held unacknowledged between them for the past couple of decades.

"When's all this going down?"

"No idea. Dad put a down payment on the new place without asking her. Guess she's fed up with him not consulting her. There were—words."

"Were you there?"

"No, not at first. Bing and I drove up. She's hanging out with Mark and Cody."

The mention of Bing brought Eli's mind back to Darcy. _Darcy. The appointment. Crap._

"Damn it," he said. " _Damn it_. I was supposed to be meeting her, now—" He was already fifteen minutes late, and he was miles in the wrong direction. It was weird, though; she hadn't called or texted. Just accepted him for the failure of a husband he was, apparently.

"Darcy?"

"Yeah. I was meeting her at the doctor's—" Eli stopped short. He'd forgotten that he was keeping this secret from James, too. He'd always told James—well, almost everything.

"The doctor's?" James sounded worried again. "Is everything OK?"

Eli took a breath. A tractor trailer shuddered past him like a thunderclap. "Everything's fine. We're—she's pregnant." Might as well just come out and say it. And damn it all, in the middle of everything, if that didn't make him smile.

James was fully silent for a minute. Then he said, "Eli, that's—wow. Congratulations, man. I—I don't know what to say."

"Say you'll be godfather?"

"Still doing the whole religion thing?"

Eli switched lanes. "Yeah. Trying to."

"Of course I'll be godfather." James sounded pleased as punch, or whatever colloquial, homespun expression best described people who were too good for the world.

Eli could have talked longer, but he had to call Darcy. She was probably angry with him. She had every right to be; he'd basically abandoned her. He'd heeled to the slightest hint of trouble with Mom, just like always. Old habits died hard, but only because they weren't always the only things dying. That's why he'd reacted that way.

He didn't know whether to feel guilty or pissed. It was a familiar cocktail, at least. He dialed Darcy's number, but she didn't answer. Eli let loose a few bitter expletives against himself, and stepped on the gas.

He didn't even have the number of the doctor, because he was an idiot. He supposed, rather desperately, that he didn't _have_ to be. He'd find the number at the apartment. He was far too late as it was; she might have gone home. She might still be waiting for him. Whichever it was, Darcy kept all her contacts in a neatly organized address book.

Traffic, as usual, was insufferable. Eli kept trying to call her—no answer. How angry could she be? Had something happened? In the end, he was almost two hours late getting home. Two hours after he should have been there, meeting her at the clinic, splitting the difference between his duties.

The apartment was quiet. Eli pounded upstairs as quickly as he could, but he didn't find the book.

He found Darcy.

She was on the bathroom floor, her back against the edge of the tub, her knees drawn up to her chest.

Eli sank down beside her, his heart beating out of his throat for the second time that day. He reached out—tentatively, as though he didn't have a right to touch her, and tried to turn her face towards him.

She shied away.

"Darcy," he said. She'd been vomiting, that much was clear, and her skin was damp and pale. " _Darcy_ ," he said again, this time more urgent. It seemed the only thing _to_ say. He didn't get to chide her for the hours he'd just lost, the worry he'd felt, the reasons he'd had—not when something was so obviously, terribly wrong.

"I—" She choked on the word.

Then Eli knew. He _had_ been an idiot, not knowing until that moment. It should have been his first thought, his first fear, but now the fear turned into something else, a rising murmur of something golden and beloved, spiking in color and promise between the passing seconds until it snapped silently with the aftershock of realization.

He hadn't really known what they'd had until it was gone.

"The baby," he whispered, numb. If there had been any doubt left, anyway, the harsh sob that forced itself from Darcy's throat was proof enough. She wouldn't look at him, her head between her hands, almost folding in on herself.

Eli swallowed hard, his eyes stinging. Without another word, he turned and lifted her in his arms, one under her knees and one around her shoulders. He'd carried her that way once more than a year ago now, but happiness like that wasn't made to last.

George wasn't home yet. He was at school, and that was a mercy. Eli carried Darcy into their room. She was shaking, her face pressed against the side of his neck. For his part, he felt distant, as though he was watching himself move from outside his own body.

All the same, he didn't want to let her go. He braced his knee against the edge of the bed and laid her there, and when she didn't make a move, he lay down beside her and pulled her against his chest.

Darcy whispered, half into his shirt, "I've been so sick. Almost every day."

"I know."

"That was supposed to be a good sign."

He couldn't say anything. He couldn't speak. He could hear a clock ticking, and all those sounds of life and movement and a world that ran on, unimpressionable.

It all came tumbling out of Darcy now, in that flat tone that always meant she was in the greatest agony. How this was her third appointment, and everything had seemed fine—he'd known, hadn't he? She'd tried to do everything right—but the doctor had turned to her, very kindly, and told her that there wasn't a heartbeat anymore.

When she said that, she started crying again. It seemed to Eli that she might never stop. He'd never seen anyone cry like this, had grown up around men who mostly bottled up their feelings and occasionally lashed out with their fists. He'd seen Levi cry. He'd seen Dad be maudlin. He'd seen Mom tear up. But this time he couldn't hide behind disgust, or even the remoteness of pity.

It was his grief too.

When Darcy had cried herself dry, she curled away from him and stretched herself flat on her back, staring at the ceiling.

"I love you," Eli said. He had nothing else.

"Maybe you shouldn't."

He bit the inside of his mouth. It hurt. "Don't say that."

She was silent, he held her, and they said nothing.

...

 **A/N: Warning: miscarriage (non-graphic).**

 **I know that this may seem like a shock tactic. It's not. I planned it from the beginning; it's a tragedy that's affected family and friends of mind and I tried (and will try) my best to deal with it sensitively and respectfully.**


	10. time will explain

**A/N: I'm sorry for the long hiatus! I needed to reflect on the sequel after some distance, since I'm hoping to publish** ** _FoTH_** **. I reread the sequel this week, and I really enjoyed. I guess I'm bias. I decided to pick it up again.**

" _We certainly do not forget you, so soon as you forget us. It is, perhaps, our fate rather than our merit." – Persuasion_

 _i._

Darcy started awake, and hated herself for sleeping.

Eli's arm was slung over her. Darcy felt his warmth, his calm—sleep had tempered his grief, at least for the moment, but she was heavy in every limb.

Last night, a text from George—he'd be late, they shouldn't wait up. Small mercies. Mercy, needed, was no mercy at all.

She shrank away from Eli. Her eyes were still sore and stiff. She dressed, quick and quiet, and checked the time. Eli's alarm wasn't set to go off for another hour.

She left a note.

Dawn was breaking in waves of pearl and calm and cold when she drove away. Cold, in August. It didn't seem right.

Few things did.

Darcy tightened her grip around the steering wheel, tightened her jaw, and stared down the road as if it was something to be tamed.

She drove out along the Island. If she made good time, she could take the eight-thirty ferry. At seven-fifteen, she called in sick. At a quarter to eight, she was sobbing.

The note on their dresser said not to worry, she only needed a day. So far, he hadn't called or texted.

She was strangely, awfully grateful for that.

Darcy bit her lips and squinted under against the rising sun. Her chest was drawing tighter and tighter, as if a drawstring was threaded through her throat. The panic attacks that had plagued her leading up to the wedding—directly before the wedding—had all but gone away until now, yet Darcy spent the ferry ride struggling to breathe.

The water was silver, and the air was clean with salt spray. There were too many people on the ferry, too many voices. The foghorn, the lapping of waves—she imagined pressing herself into sounds and sights and _lights_ , as though all of it would take her away.

They docked mid-morning. It was hot. It was August again. And this was the end of all things.

Every road was familiar. She'd gone to school in Greenwich, known the lay of its idylls—and she had left them behind a decade ago, when they dared to stay the same in the face of tragedy.

She hadn't returned here for the better part of a year. Eli had never known this place.

This place no longer could be known, except as a memory. Darcy crunched across gravel, instead of skimming silver waves, but the air was still clean.

She opened the door to the house.

When she was eleven, she broke her leg, falling from a horse. Eli had run his fingers across the scar, once, and asked her how she had come by it.

She'd said she was riding her bike.

Somehow, in the intervening sixteen years, she hadn't told a soul the whole story. How the pain had been blinding, how terrifying it had been, her leg twisted under her while Dolly galloped away.

And her father had found her there, carried her back, her head pressed against his shoulder. She had cried and cried, but he hadn't let her go.

She didn't remember much about the emergency room or the long weeks afterwards, reading stacks of books with a cast to her hip. She remembered her father's voice in her ear, and the smell of the fields in the summer.

 _What is it like, remembering your parents?_

 _A quick rush of anger, followed by insurmountable emptiness._

 _What is like, losing a child?_

"Miss Dorothy," said Clarence, meeting her in the hall. "Where have you been?"

"I've been busy," she said, stilted and thin. Clarence had worked for her father. Even left to itself, the Greenwich house needed a staff—a larger staff than Pemberley, because of the horses. Unlike Mrs. Turner, though, Clarence had never really warned to his former employer's children. They were just names on a list—albeit names at the top of the list.

"The house is in perfect order," he said, a little disapproving. And Darcy knew why. This was the family estate—hell, she managed it, if from afar, and she _knew_ that she was shirking it in the spirit of the law. She had shied away from it like one of the wayward thoroughbreds.

She hadn't called it home, truly, since she'd left for law school.

"I'm here now, aren't I?" She wondered if it looked like she'd been crying. "I've come to look it over, Clarence." In a different hour, she might have added, _isn't it my right_?, but nothing belonged to her today.

Clarence faded grimly into the shadows and Darcy went upstairs.

Everything was kept just as it should be.

Here was her old room—George's old room—the corridors, the piano room, her parents' room—

Darcy covered her eyes with her hand, dragged it down her face like a weight.

 _Anger, and a rush of something else—_

She found her mother's room.

The long mirror made her look taller than she was. It always had. She was never so grown-up as she was in front of that mirror, and never so infinitely trapped in the past. This Darcy did not know herself.

The place didn't smell like Mom anymore. It was just pictures and fragments and—

 _I'm so sorry,_ the doctor was saying, in her head. Maybe he'd be saying it forever. _Your baby doesn't have a heartbeat._

Fifteen, and she screamed at the blank faces to show her the bodies.

 _The baby is dead,_ she had said in return, and the doctor's face hadn't even moved, except for a shift behind his eyes that always, always mean that people were sorry because there was nothing they could do. _You can say it._

Fifteen, and the man in front of her is saying, with that same terrible shift in his eyes, _There were no remains._

Darcy turned from the mirror. She faced the cedar chest under the window.

"I lost her," she said. She had decided— _known_ —in that instant that the baby had been a girl. "I lost her. And you. And Dad. And George, when it counted."

Downstairs, she turned abruptly to Clarence as she stood by the front door. Clarence, who had held her absence against her, was now waiting for her to leave. "Clarence," she said, "I'm going to sell this place."

"Miss Dorothy—" He shouted it out, an indignant puff of air. He had never shouted at her before.

She raised a hand. "Please don't try to argue," she said. "This isn't my home any more, and it's wasteful to leave it here, unused. I don't know quite when I will sell it, but I am selling it. Our lawyers will be in touch." Because yes, of course, the Williams retained their own lawyers.

Clarence did not move, did not speak again. He might have been a ghost, for all she knew. It was a lonely place now, and it did not belong to the living—not to _her_ living, anyway.

To the front of the house, she said nothing. To the expansive gardens, the rolling, impersonal greenness, she whispered her goodbyes.

It could only be home to children.

 _ii._

He couldn't call in sick on his second day of work.

Eli slipped a noose around that thought and pulled it tight. He kept it there through a mechanically eaten breakfast and a grueling drive. Every time something else attempted to worm its way in, he tugged at the metaphorical knot until nothing else could fit.

But all such exercises could not last forever; in his pocket, Darcy's note was folded into a small square, relentless and remembered.

 _I need a day._

A day for what? To grieve—alone?

He shouldn't begrudge her the space. He shouldn't begrudge her anything. After all, he hadn't even _been_ there when the news had come.

Today—the first day, _after_ , he had one class. A second section—and thus, it was _Ulysses_ , again.

 _I am caught in this burning scene. Pan's hour, the faunal noon. Among gumheavy serpentplants, milkoozing fruits, where on the tawny waters leaves lie wide. Pain is far._

Pain is far.

See: this was the cruel thing about life. It kept going. On and on, and you could break down or you could try to take time away or you could do any number of blind, stumbling parries against its onslaught, for all the good it did you.

Eli chose to do what did not come naturally to most of his family, but which did, after all, come to him—by nature or by grief.

Which was to say—he faked it.

And afterwards, he stared at himself in the men's room mirror for a long time.

He hadn't texted her. Hadn't called her. Had taken her note and folded it into that tight, sharp-corned square, and vowed not to hurt her by his clumsy efforts at comfort.

 _James. You could talk to James._

But he clawed at that suggestion, throwing it aside. James only knew the good; he couldn't tear it all down. Telling James—telling George, oh, _God_ , telling George—would make it real.

 _You weren't even ready for a kid, you idiot. You were too scared to tell her, but it's true_.

He picked up his phone on the way out to the parking lot. He dialed the number, not letting himself think twice about it.

"Elijah?"

"Hey, Mom."

"What's the matter?"

He blew out his breath. This was a terrible idea, and he _knew_ it was, but he wasn't hanging up the phone. "I should be asking you the same thing, huh?" It was three-thirty. He'd prepped for tomorrow. His desk was neat as a pin. Painfully neat.

 _Pain is far._

"Do you really want me to follow your father to another godforsaken dump to live out the rest of my days in the same kind of filth I've had to put up with all this time?"

"No. But—"

"You're all moved out. He's leaving. Do I have to stay, Elijah? Do I have to stay with him, _still_?"

He squeezed his eyes shut, blinked out a few tears, and shook his head, staring up at the sky. It was staunchly, wearily blue. Late afternoon; he needed to get going. Needed to get in his car and drive. "Of course not. I didn't mean…" Dad was upset, but of course Dad was upset. Eli didn't give a damn about that. Couldn't, at the moment. _Pain is far._

"Why don't you tell me what's going on with you?"

 _Don't tell her. It's not worth it. It's not_ —but if being her favorite _worth_ something, shouldn't he make it count? "Darcy…was pregnant."

"Was?"

"We lost the baby." It was easier to say than to live.

He heard her sigh. He clenched his fingers around the phone and bit his lip and squeezed his eyes shut again. God, he needed to work all of this out of his system. He couldn't go home like this.

Home.

 _I needed a day_.

Mom didn't say anything for a long time. Then—"Oh, son. Oh, Eli." For once, there wasn't a trace of bitterness in Mom's tone, only sympathy. "I'm so sorry. Oh, this shouldn't happen to _you_."

"Well, it did." The words spoke themselves; he barely seemed to have any control over them. "Darcy's taking it harder, though. I don't know—I just—it was only yesterday, but it feels like forever. Is it supposed to be this bad? Is it—"

Mom said, "There's no rule. Grief just is. OK? There's no rule."

"OK." His voice was shaking. Damn, his voice was shaking. "I…I don't even know where she is."

"Darcy?" The faintest edge entered Mom's voice again. "You don't know where Darcy is?"

He shouldn't have said it. He screwed up. "She just said she needed to take a day. That's all."

"Hmm. Well, if I wasn't a goddamn cripple," said Mom, very softly, "I'd drive down there. I wouldn't leave you alone." The emphasis on the _I_ was barely present, but he felt it.

All he wanted to do was lean into her voice, but he couldn't, he had to defend Darcy. "It's not like that. She just—she's really cut up about it, Mom. You should have seen her yesterday—" Except nobody should have seen that, nobody but it him. Those moments belonged to them, and them alone.

Mom sighed again. "Darling, you know my twisted heart only has room to worry about you right now. I wish I was there. I wish you were here. I'm so, so, sorry."

"Thanks, Mom." He swallowed. He was a lowly adjunct; tearing up in the parking lot wouldn't exactly win him any newbie awards. "Got to go. But thanks."

He thought he'd find the apartment empty. But Darcy was in the living room, cross-legged on the couch, with her phone in her lap.

"Hey," she said. She looked exhausted, but he didn't think she'd been recently crying.

(He loved her.)

(It wasn't always enough.)

"Hey," he said. There wasn't any way to start the next conversations in their life that felt right, so he figured he should just start somewhere. "Where's George?"

"Not here. He left about an hour ago."

Slowly, Eli said, "You told him?"

Darcy shook her head. "I didn't have to. He just knew. I look like hell. It makes sense."

"Where did he go?"

"He asked if he needed to stay. I told him—I told him it might be better if he stayed with Fitz this week."

Eli nodded, and sat down on the couch beside her. He'd forgotten to take off his shoes; it was one of Darcy's particularities. He hunched over to untie his shoelaces. In a moment, he felt her hand on his shoulder.

"I'm not OK," she said.

Eli let out a laugh, only it wasn't really a laugh. It was more of a sob, but there was no one else to hear it but Darcy. "Yeah, I know."

"I feel like it's my fault."

He turned his head sharply, facing her. "It's not."

Her eyes stayed on him for a long, grave moment. "Yeah, I know. Except knowing doesn't matter. It never has, for me. Not when—the worst happens."

He reached for her hand, ran his thumb over her knuckles, tried to bring some warmth to her always-chilly fingers. "So what does that mean?"

She tilted her head, letting her hair slip over her shoulder. Her eyes brimmed, but her voice was steady. "It means, I just want you to sit here with me, and hold me, and just…stay."

And that, at least, he could do.


	11. I have faults enough

_"_ _Think only of the past as its remembrance gives you pleasure." - Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice_

 _i._

George didn't come home that weekend. He texted her once— _Fitz and I are thinking of you_ —and Darcy thought that it wasn't fair, that she had to lean on Eli for herself and Fitz for George and secrets for everything else. She wrote back, _I'm doing OK. Miss you_.

She had gone back to work the second day. _Numb_ was easier this time around; she had been deliberate in saying that she needed a day.

At fifteen, she had needed much more than a day.

On Sunday, Eli didn't even budge when her alarm went off. He came downstairs half an hour later, when she was standing in front of the gilt-edged mirror, almost ready to go.

"What are you dressed up for?"

"I'm going to church." Darcy fastened the clasp on her necklace. "It's Sunday."

Eli leaned against the doorframe, thumbs hooked in the pockets of his pajama pants. "You're not…I don't know. Done with that?"

Darcy went still. "What do you mean?" She turned her head, slowly, and surveyed him with a glance. "Clearly you are, because you're not dressed."

He huffed a small sigh and rubbed his forehead. "I didn't mean—I just, I don't know. This whole faith thing seems pretty rough, what with…"

"If you're asking if I became an atheist when my parents died, then the answer is no, I didn't."

Eli, usually quick with a response, said nothing.

Darcy cleared her throat. "I didn't blame God for what happened; I blamed _them_." The words surprised her, even though she had intended to say them. She had never dared to say them out loud before. Why the hell now? She broke Eli's gaze first, hated herself for it, and then picked up her purse. "You don't have to have faith. But unless you do, you can't understand mine."

She was halfway out the door before his voice followed her. "Darcy, wait—"

She waited. He stood there, and he reached out, but his hand didn't take hers. Darcy took his instead, quickly. That was a rift that she could not allow to open. Not now, not ever. "I'm sorry," she said, and cursed herself inwardly for always having to shatter into something hard-edged. "I didn't mean to snap. I don't want to force this on you—that isn't what it should be about."

He pulled her against him—her Chanel against his thin t-shirt, rumpled from sleep. "I don't know how to say this."

Darcy stood up tall, high in her heels, and pressed her lips into the hollow of his shoulder. "Just say it."

"We're such miserable souls," he said, with a laugh that didn't sound quite like a laugh. "You should have married somebody who could make you happy, darling."

"I don't think I can be made happy," Darcy said, very softly. She felt him wince, and oh, God, she hadn't meant it against him. "Eli, you're right, I am utterly miserable. You make me feel loved. And maybe—Bing would say that I'll be happy again, if she knew."

"Do you want her to know?"

"Never," Darcy said, and almost believed that she meant it.

"James knows. Well, he will. He knew—I told him—"

She stepped back so that she could look him in the eyes. And yes, there it was. Guilt. "We told George. Of course you could tell James. I wouldn't have stopped you."

"It was an accident."

It was the most they had spoken of anything, before or after or _over_ , in the string of days since.

Darcy kissed him, lingering against his lips, and then said, "I have to go. I don't want to be late."

"Isn't a day like a thousand years in the sight of your God?" Eli asked.

Darcy chewed the inside of her cheek. "Are you sure don't want to come?"

The corners of his eyes and mouth pinched a little; for an uncanny second, the resemblance to his mother was strong. "Not today. I love you, though."

"I love you, too."

But Mass was harder to bear all alone, when she'd grown used to company. There was too much space in the pew beside her. And it wasn't supposed to be about loneliness, not when you had faith, only Darcy was much more the type to stand out in the chilly darkness outside the golden gates, than to ever expect to be let in.

She mouthed the prayers, and listened to the whisper of something else. _I didn't blame God for what happened_.

What _had_ she done, after that first week, that first month? Or had it even been so long? George, only George—he had been her point of focus, sinking like gravity into the center of her soul. George had school. George had nightmares. George had to have dinner at five o'clock.

And Darcy put the rest in piano picture frames, and forced it out of her soul.

Belief? There was simply no time to stop having it.

 _I blame them_. She scrabbled her fingernails against her knuckles and rose to say, _amen_.

Fitz and George were at home. At Fitz's home, to be more precise, at least, the current one. Fitz was a restless investor in real estate. This apartment was intriguing, but someone had been murdered there, so the aura was too Hitchcock. This one had a balcony; but _this_ one had bay windows.

She rang the bell, and as she hoped, George answered.

"Can I talk to you?"

George's mouth opened and closed. He was taller than her, but it was an unbearable difference when he was a step above her.

"Of course," George said. "Do you…want to come inside? Fitz is making pancakes."

Darcy pondered that for only half a second. Fitz and pancakes were entirely too golden a prospect for the current state of her soul. "No. Thanks. I just…can we walk?"

He was at her side in a moment. His lips twitched a little. "Will you break if I hug you?"

It was an old joke of theirs. Well, of hers. She used to say it to him.

Darcy thought, _too late_. Darcy said, "No," and wrapped her arms around his shoulders.

"I'm so sorry," George said.

"You shouldn't have to be. It's all—"

"Not your fault."

 _I blame them._ And now she had become them. George's steps swung evenly next to hers. He had their father's nose. "I think I'd like to sell the house in Connecticut," Darcy said, trying to make _quiet_ into _calm_. "Would you mind?"

George's eyebrows drew together. "I don't miss it very much," he said.

"I don't either," Darcy said. "I went there, though. The—" She was a grown woman, and she might as well say it. "The day after I lost the baby, I drove up there. And it was—it was just exactly like we left it, except nothing mattered anymore."

"OK," said George. He shrugged. "It's just you, Darcy. You're home, you know?" He stumbled over his words a bit. "I don't mean—I mean, I'm fine. I love Juilliard, and Fitz, and he always has a new apartment, so that's interesting. Kind of like…permanent hotels. I just mean, I don't need the house in Connecticut. We have Pemberley, and we have us."

 _Us_. Hollowed out with loss, for all the gains she'd made. "I'm angry at Mom and Dad," Darcy murmured. They were hard words to say.

That made George stop mid-step, and he swung around, a little pale. A little less sure than he had been in saying goodbye to their childhood home. "Why?"

Darcy felt a sob rising like a wave. Was it better, or worse, that George no longer looked like a little kid? He wasn't the eight-year-old she'd comforted out of sheer desperation. "Because they didn't need a goddamn private plane, you know? They didn't have to—" her hands flailed. It was frustrating to be this helpless, and she knew that people would start staring in a second, but she was too far away to care. "It pisses me off. All these years, I've thought—I thought I wasn't allowed to let it piss me off. It's been this—this _coffin_ , trapped in here." She dug her finger against half an inch of gilt-threaded tweed, pressing her sternum.

"Are you angry at me?"

"No." Her hand dropped to her side. "Why would I be angry at you?"

"Because. You did it for me."

The look in his eyes hurt her. "I've never needed to be angry at you, George. But I did need to be angry at them. And now…it's just all I've got. Because I've sent you and Fitz away, and I haven't told Bing, and Eli's probably next, and the baby…" The sob was winning out again.

George stepped forward, and held her. "Let's go back," he whispered, against her hair.

"Where?" Her head was tucked under his chin, and she was crying against his t-shirt. People were certainly watching, but people could go to hell.

"Back inside. Fitz is making pancakes, and it _will_ help." George, as always, was earnest. "And I'll call Eli, and he'll come over, because it's Sunday and we're a family now. You know that, right?"

"Only in my head." Darcy sighed, drew back, and wiped her eyes. "It's the rest of me that never seems to know it."

"The rest of you can follow your head." George tried for a grin. "That's what everyone follows anyway."

 _ii._

Eli was watching her as she slipped off her shoes, flexing her pinched toes against the hardwood. "You ever get tired of wearing heels?"

"I never get tired of being tall," Darcy returned, with a regal glance, but he could see the relaxed slump in her shoulders all the same.

Eli moved behind her, lifting her jacket off her shoulders, creasing the petal of her sleeve between his fingers. "It was good getting out of the house, wasn't it? Seeing George and Fitz?"

"It was." She reached up and grabbed his hand, lacing his fingers through hers. "You know, I've just got this stupid idea that I'm only allowed like, one person, maybe two, at any given time."

"Glad I made the cut as the one," Eli said, as confidently as though he always believed it. He turned her towards him, gently, trying to read the expression in her eyes. "We have to get out of our own heads sometimes-magnificent heads though they are."

"I agree."

She almost looked peaceful. Eli found her hand with his again and tugged her gently in the direction of their room. "Come on. Let's go to bed." He had something else to say to her, but he didn't want to say it quite yet.

"It's not very late yet." They'd stayed at Fitz's through dinner; it was past eight now, but still.

"You're not tired from all those pancakes?" Eli teased, noting that she followed him upstairs willingly enough.

"I never get tired of Fitz's pancakes. It's like one of the two things he cooks really well. I could eat a dozen."

"Are you sure you didn't?"

Darcy rolled her eyes. "You're one to talk." She slipped into her pajamas, then into bed. He loved her like this: soft, hair a little tangled. Darcy was a thousand things, and always about eight hundred at once.

It was hard to say how those multitudes would respond to this.

He lay down next to her, propped himself up on his elbow, and said, "Hey."

She blinked up at him. "So much for being out of our own heads, huh?"

As though they ever really were. Eli lifted a corner of his lips in acknowledgement, then said, "Actually…I just. It's bad timing, I know it is."

"You can tell me," Darcy said. "That's the great thing about being married to me. I'm always screwed up. It'll still be there."

He wanted to kiss her and not have to broach this subject, and the complications it involved. "The reason I was late…that day. I told you. It was my mom. It _is_ my mom. There's—there's stuff going on with my parents."

"I know."

"Yeah, well." He paused, then continued. She was just listening, not moving a muscle. "I need to talk with James. Think I need to go see him in person."

"Oh."

"I know you haven't seen Bing for a while. I know she's going to want to see you." They'd talked about it this morning, sort of. Or at least, he had asked if she was ever going to tell Bing and she had said, _never_. And Eli had let her walk off to her prayers alone, because he was tired of pretending. And now he was prodding at the wound—more than one wound, perhaps.

In answer, Darcy went back to saying nothing. Her eyelashes brushed her cheeks; she was looking down. Away from him—if only for a moment—

And this was the trouble. He couldn't bear to watch people lift their eyes to God; she sometimes just _couldn't_ , couldn't face the blinding light of Bing's happiness. Maybe that meant it was better, that he wasn't the happy type, always or even mostly. It meant she would never have to run from him.

Two miserable souls. Hadn't they agreed?

(Would she ever run from him?)

Darcy smiled, but it wasn't exactly a smile. "God," she said. "It would break Bing's heart if she knew." She tossed her head a little, reached up to tuck her hair behind her ear. "That's why—well, that's why I never can…All she ever wants is for me to be OK—and then something happens…some catastrophe…and it's like a failing grade, you know? Can't go to Bing and show her the what all her hard work looks like when it's smashed."

"Come on," Eli said, trying for a little levity. "You've never failed anything in your life."

She tugged at her earlobe. "Actually I did. Calculus, sophomore year."

 _Sophomore year._ "You mean when…"

Her eyebrows flickered a bit. "Yeah. _When_. Tragedy isn't an excuse, Eli. It's an existence. And through it all, you know what's always worst?" She tapped her temple. "George said it today, something about following my head. And that's just it. This still works. It's all still there. I get to watch myself just…go to shit."

"Darcy." He felt angry. Not at her, but maybe at her own ruthlessness. One second he seemed to break through, and the next she was watching him from a thousand miles away. _A thousand things at once._ "Darcy, I'm pretty damn hard on myself, but you can't—"

"I _shouldn't_ , you mean to say," she said. "I know. And that's all part of it too. I know my own hellish coping mechanisms. I try to keep people away from then, when possible. The collateral damage is very ugly."

She meant George, or maybe the baby, as though that was her _fault_ in any sense—

"What about me?"

"What about you?"

He felt almost childlike, naïve, having to force the words out. "You don't keep me away."

( _You wouldn't. Would you?_ )

She grinned. Her eyes looked a little watery, though. "Ah," she said. "There's the catch."

"Say it." He needed her to say it.

She leaned in, put her mouth almost against his, and whispered, " _I love you too much_."

He kissed her, and he didn't stop, for quite a while. After, he said, "You don't have to go with me. I'll make something up. But I—I do need to go see him."

"Of course." She rolled onto her side, her fingers clasped together under her cheek. "I don't want to—I don't want to be the reason you can't help your family."

Eli reached out, put a hand on her waist. "You're my family, too."

She smiled, but her eyes were tired. "I know. But you have a lot of family. And that's a good thing."

It didn't always feel like it. "I'll tell James to come meet me at our new place tomorrow. I'll go there after work. Do you want to—"

"I'll be up there on the weekend."

"OK." He nodded. It was fine. It was all fine. "You should get some sleep."

"So should you."

He pulled her closer again, so that her head was tucked under his chin. Here like this, it was like they'd never lost anything, like nothing else could slip between the grasp of time and tragedy, twining together and tearing apart.

But collateral damage was only ever a result of drawing too close.


	12. make a second calculation better

_"I hate to hear you talk about all women as if they were fine ladies instead of rational creatures. None of us want to be in calm waters all our lives." – Jane Austen, Persuasion_

 _i._

"Can I talk with you for a second?"

Darcy looked up. She recognized him; this bespoke-suited man leaning his elbows on the edge of her cubicle divider. A junior partner gracing the bullpen with his presence.

"What do you need?"

"You, actually." He was rather Teutonic, Darcy thought—too narrow-faced to be properly handsome, but sharp-featured and blonde as a Viking. Albeit, a Viking in a three-piece.

She leaned back and crossed her arms over her chest. Say what Bing would, she didn't think the gesture always had to be confrontational. "What can _I_ help you with?" And yes, most associates—first-year, second-year, whatever spoke with extreme deference to _all_ the partners, but this guy couldn't have had more than five years on Darcy, so she wasn't exactly about to muster up _awe_.

He grinned. "I'm Logan Blaine. I don't think we've met, but I've heard about your work—actually, the way you took point on the case with Harry Dennis was very impressive. I wonder if you'd be interested in a similarly tricky assignment."

"Sexual harassment, again?" The most egregious acts _did_ always pique Darcy's sense of justice.

"Partially. That's where it started. At this point, it's actually a derivative suit about waste of corporate assets, and there's a few directors implicated." He leaned over the divider slightly. "I'm getting some pressure from higher-ups to work it out without hanging these directors out to dry, but by pressure, I mean I'm being asked to prove myself. My gut tells me there's a breach of loyalty here, and if that's the case—"

"We represent the corporation, not them." Darcy stood up, facing him, regulating her interest to an appropriate degree of professional eagerness. "So you want to try to get an arrangement between the corporation and the directors, and then between the directors and the plaintiffs?"

"Exactly. Weed out the bad ones, you know? I need creative thinkers on this, though. There's some tricky facts, and I hear that you're good at thinking outside the box."

Darcy glanced around. It was true; she rather viewed the other associates as drones, but that was because she hadn't much patience with most people. Inside, the sneaking voice that hung heavily in her dreams was reminding her, _pull back, pull back, no more ambition_ —but she was terribly tired of that voice, of the phantom pains in her abdomen, and the sleepless nights that she couldn't blame on anyone but herself. Right now, Eli was probably meeting James for lunch. She wondered if he had told James yet, about the baby.

"I'll help," she said. "I need to finish drawing up this contract though, is that OK? And I have another case assignment from Macready—"

Logan Blaine waved a hand. "I've cleared this with Macready. You're all mine. If you're in."

"I said I was." She nodded, and even smiled, because sometimes escapism was very practical and in the present. "Thank you, Mr. Blaine."

"Don't be droll. Logan." He extended a long-fingered hand. "I look forward to working with you, Dorothy."

"Darcy, please."

He smiled again. "Darcy."

It wasn't a glow. Darcy, at her best, was not made for glowing. But the thought of something new—something actually demanding _her_ mind, _her_ principles, _her_ experience—was enough to lift a little darkness.

The darkness receded still further—if a little more painfully—when she checked her email, and found a veritable epistle from Bing. It had been too long since she had seen Bing. Too long, and it was, as always, Darcy's own fault.

 _Dearest darling Darcy—and no, it isn't an accident that your name shares the first three letters with darling, so there._

 _Also, what a Victorian way to start a letter, I guess. This is an email. Ugh. Why am I this way._

 _I know you're probably at work, hunched over your desk like the prettiest gremlin ever. So I just wanted to say: I miss you. We're both married! Would you believe it? I wouldn't, if you flagged me down in college and said, 'hey, there. Don't be scared of my eyebrows. Someday we're going to be married to gorgeous brothers.'_

 _Also I hope you don't think it's weird that I am almost as aware of Eli's gorgeousness as I am of James'. Like, come on!_

 _Anyway, I got married and then I went on my honeymoon—which was awesome, by the way. I may not have the best artist's hand but I think I do have a good artist's heart, it just soaks up cool foreign places in a way that is beautiful and overwhelming and which I'm obviously not very good at putting in words? But also when James and I got home I knew you were right. You're always right Dar(cy)/(ling). All I wanted was to go around to all the little places where we'd spent time in love. None of the faraway things mattered. How did you know?_

 _So, where was I going with this? I can see your eyebrows RIGHT NOW._

 _Oh, yeah. We are both married and we've barely seen each other! Which is completely understandable because you're the best lawyer in the world, but I'm just throwing around a paintbrush and some awesome textured canvases (found them at this vintage-y art supplies store and I've been OBSESSED. Just ask James). Point is: I HAVE TIME. Please come and sit at our table—now that it's_ our _table, and not just Future Place Where Our Table Will Be (like it was when you helped us pick out the house in the first place)._

 _Also, James and I really want to visit your place. I know he's visiting it today because of their mom. It's hit me lately that we are both her daughters now. I'm so sorry that things are hard for them. If I was in charge I would make everything not hard for people. That is not good English. Oh, Darcy! I'm so sorry that this email is a mess, and also that there is unhappiness anywhere._

 _I know you have a lot on your plate. But I miss your voice, and your smile. Let me know when it's a good time to call?_

 _Love you so much._

Darcy leaned back in her chair, glanced at her watch, and returned to her work. She didn't get to be distracted, not here. Not by Bing. But she could _hear_ Bing's voice again, ringing lightly all around her. Bing missed her, and Darcy, as ever, did not deserve to be missed.

 _You should tell her. Tell her, and let yourself go._

She kneaded her palms with her nails.

Quickly, she tapped back, _I miss you too. Work has been intense. I'll call you soon._

Changed that last to, _I'll be in touch_ , and closed her email as another second-year associate approached her desk. Darcy tried for politeness in her smile, but she wasn't Bing.

More to the point, she didn't like Alexis.

"You're working with Blaine?" was Alexis' opener.

"He's asked for my help with a case," Darcy said, disliking the tone of the question as much as the speaker.

"Hmm." Alexis lifted her eyebrows. "We'll see how that works out, I guess."

"I wasn't aware it was a spectator sport," Darcy returned. She would rather be standing, but she leaned back in her chair nonchalantly, which was second best for strategic tactics.

"He asked for my help last month. It won't last, just so you know."

There were times when Darcy couldn't even divine _why_ someone had started a conversation. "I'll be sure not to repeat any such failings," she said. "Thank you for the advice." And then she turned her chair, and her back, resolutely.

 _ii._

James got out of his truck, jammed his hands in his pockets, and whistled. "Wow. Mom would love this place."

It wasn't until the words were spoken that Eli realized he'd been dreading them. He wasn't quite sure why. "It's pretty nice. Mostly finished inside, too."

"Does Darcy plan on making a full stay of it?"

"She's not coming by tonight, but she's here mostly." He was being evasive, which hadn't used to be his way with James. But James and Bing woke up side-by-side in sunshine, probably, every morning, and Eli couldn't find it in himself to explain the nuances of his own current life.

They wandered through the house. James was warmly complimentary. "You did all the painting yourself? Looks good."

"Didn't want Darcy to feel like she had to hire somebody. She has enough to deal with." As though it wouldn't have been as quick as a phone call. No, in truth, _he_ had been the one to need the work. Otherwise he'd have gone stir-crazy, or something.

"How's the job?"

"It's great." Eli felt his chest constrict. This wasn't how they talked. Not him and James. James was the same, though, plaid shirt and all. Hell, he was examining the lintels and wainscoting.

 _It's you. Dammit, it's you._

"When do you have to get back today?"

"I don't at all, today. Brought the stuff I need to grade home. Just a morning class."

"Nice." James was peering into the fireplace. "So, how's Darcy doing? Still feeling queasy?"

Eli's hand flailed a little, in the open air, and found the edge of the table, mercifully. It would be easy to lie, now, and only harder to tell the truth later. "Actually, I, uh. I've been meaning to tell you. The baby didn't make it." It was the clumsiest way to say it, but grief was a clumsy thing.

James straightened up like a shot. His face was all sympathy, and it wasn't _Mom's_ sympathy, with its shadowy corners and bitter twist of vindication. No, James' sympathy burned bright and kind—and Eli flinched away from it all the same.

"I'm so, so sorry," said James.

Eli waved a hand. Actually waved a hand, as though that was the thing to do under the circumstances. "It's been tough. Darcy didn't talk to Bing about it, so maybe you…"

"Could not say anything? Of course not. I didn't tell her—um, originally, either. I just thought…"

 _That Darcy would want to break the news to her best friend._

Eli licked his lips. "Um, yeah." A little silence stretched out between them and then Eli shouldered the way to the kitchen, pulling out some sandwiches from the fridge. "Here, eat. Let's talk about Mom."

James sat down at the kitchen table. Eli remembered _their_ kitchen, where he and James had bumped elbows constantly, in their quest to keep seven restless people fed for over a decade. He could remember the worn dent in the middle of the floor, as well as he knew the back of his own hand.

"I think we just need to find her a new place to live," James said, between mouthfuls. Eli still knew how to make him a sandwich, apparently. "But she can't live alone."

"Is Mark—"

"Mark is thinking of transferring to Buffalo next semester." James' tone stopped just short of reproof. Still, Eli should have known. "I don't want to put this on Mark or Cody, you know? God forbid putting it on Levi."

"Yeah." Eli recovered himself. "Levi's always off-the-wall about Mom and Dad anyway."

"Cody and he are actually doing pretty well together. So it's just like, figuring out what to do with Mom and Dad."

Eli fiddled with a bread crust. "I haven't talked to Dad lately."

"I wouldn't think you had." James smiled, a little wryly. As wry, at least, as James ever was. "Dad's got a new place lined up. We can't stop him from burning himself out. We'll still be here when he gets comes back."

"Crawls back, you mean. And maybe _you'll_ still be here."

" _Eli_."

"I know, I know." Eli scraped a hand over his chin. Wondered what Darcy was doing, right at this moment, in her thousand-dollar suit and glass-paned high-rise. "So, back to Mom?"

"I had an idea," James said slowly. "I wasn't sure what you'd think of it though."

Eli waited. The clock was ticking and his pulse was jumping, rabbit-like, and—he waited.

"Bing and I are thinking of asking her to come and stay with us for a while."

Eli breathed. He didn't know why, but it was like—well, like a weight had lifted. "That would be pretty great. If you could handle it, I mean."

"She really gets along well with Bing," James said. "I just—I thought we'd give it a shot and go from there. I haven't suggested it to her yet. Maybe…"

"Maybe I could?"

"Yeah." James smiled a little sheepishly. "I'm sorry to put that on you. But you always get through to her."

 _Well, not always_.

Eli said, "It's the least I can do."


	13. view of the last smiles

_"Autumn-that season of peculiar and inexhaustible influence on the mind of taste and tenderness." – Jane Austen, Persuasion_

 _i._

"Eli," she whispered—almost softly at first, for he deserved all softness, cast in pale sunlight as he was—"Eli, we have to get up."

Eli did not open his eyes. He had had one arm slung over her waist as they slept: now, he lifted that arm and lazily pinned her wrist to the pillow behind her. Then, eyes still closed—lashes, frustratingly long and enviable, as Darcy well knew—he drew himself up over her. His right hand was still linked around her wrist—his left arm grazed her ribs.

Chest to chest. Darcy held her breath.

Eli kissed her.

"So you _are_ awake," Darcy accused, almost against his lips.

"Nope."

"Eli."

"It's Saturday, peerless wife."

"You mean _perilous_."

"Always that too." He fell back, one arm pillowing his head, and slid her a glint of a glance.

She grazed the stubble prickling along his jaw with her fingertips. "I like our new house."

"I'm glad. You bought it."

Darcy bit her lip, then realized he was teasing her. The amber in his eyes was catching in the warm shades of morning. The curtains were sheer enough to filter in sunrays. She'd picked them out particularly.

"You know," Eli said, "I could stay here forever, if you weren't creating a great disturbance in the force—by which I mean, Saturday morning—with your nervous fidgeting."

Darcy sat up on the bed, crossed her legs. Her hair was rumpled around her shoulders. "There's something I want to do today, but I'm going to lose all nerve to do it if we don't do it soon. That's why…well, that's why I'm like…"

"Hounding me?" Eli demanded, but he sat up, too, leaning back on his hands. "What tremendous scheme is brewing?"

Darcy swallowed hard. The room was pale blue; the color of spring skies and oceans no one knew. She had chosen the color because blue was calming, but Eli had done the work of painting. He had made this house their second home all through September and beyond, while Darcy charged time and again against the brick wall of her own ambition. "I want to go visit Bing."

 _Want_ was, perhaps, too strong a word. Yet, dread had become something else in the weeks since she'd begun the new project. The work had been…invigorating. She still wasn't sure how long it would last, but Logan seemed to find her a useful asset to the team.

"I thought I'd need another associate," he had said. "But honestly, you're carrying so much of it I think the two of us are a better fit on our own."

"I agree," she'd said, because Darcy hated shuffling work product through more hands than necessary—that way incompetence lay—and he had smiled.

"I knew I singled you out for a reason."

She never talked about her home life at work, of course. That would be unprofessional. And anyway, nothing could fill loss—loss just _was_. It was meant to exist simply, buried somewhere beside the other markers of her past.

So, loss remained. But the sting of it—that unbearable hammer striking relentlessly at her temples—that faded, a little, with time.

And work was better than guilt.

Eli reached out and tucked her hair behind her ear. They were facing each other now, knees almost touching. His fingers slipped through the wispy strands at the nape of her neck and stayed there, warm against her skin. "I'd like that," he said. "Seeing you see Bing again."

A question hung between them briefly, but Darcy answered it, even if she couldn't meet his gaze, quite, as she did. "I'm not going to tell her. I don't think I need to."

Eli put his other hand on her knee, tugging her forward a little. His lips found hers again. Darcy clung tightly to his shoulders. It was a moment not to let go.

Fortunately, Bing made evasion unnecessary; she filled up all the pauses and uncertainties. The first full hour of their visit was barely enough to contain her joy at their surprise arrival. As a general rule, Darcy was never keen on surprising people—she knew Bing would enjoy it, of course, but the thing in itself seemed so irresponsible and unreliable that she made sure that Eli texted James in forewarning.

Her worries had been unnecessary. For Bing, their arrival was a cause for extreme celebration.

And Darcy had forgotten—or shuttered out—the memory of _this_. Bing's arms around her, the mass of her curly hair springing against her cheek. Bing's laugh, tinkling in the air.

Fitz was her rock and George was her purpose and Eli was all that kept her going, most days.

But Bing would always be her sunlight.

 _How did you let yourself need so many people?_ The voice in her head was a curious one. It might almost have been Logan, or someone more nameless and faceless at work. Probing without understanding, or any true hope to. Darcy thought of the baby, and Darcy pushed such thoughts away.

"I missed you," she said.

"The library in our house looks like you," Bing exclaimed.

"What?"

"We have a library. It's just one not-too-big room, this isn't like, _Beauty and the Beast_ or anything—but we have this one room with these bookshelves that James built, and I painted it burgundy. Which, honestly, someday I'm going to do this fabulous Madame X-style portrait of you, but it's going to be in burgundy and it's going to be amazing. So. We filled this place with all of our books, and James and I just looked around, and I was like, 'Oh my gosh. This is Darcy. It's a room version of Darcy.'"

Darcy grinned, despite herself. "I'll take it as a compliment."

"Of course! It is one!" She stepped back and stretched her arms out to Eli. "Hi! I need to hug you too!"

"I don't know," Eli said gravely. "I've yet to hear how I inspired your dining room."

"Ignore him," James said, very fondly. "Come in for lunch?"

They had sandwiches—courtesy of James. When they were finished, Bing leaned over to Darcy. "Come see the library," she said, linking their fingers together. "I think they want to talk shop."

By shop, Darcy knew, Bing meant _Mrs. Bennett_. She stood up, put a hand on Eli's shoulder, and followed Bing through the house.

It had a lived-in feel that Darcy knew the little Cape Cod, sunlit as it was, just…couldn't. Eli was there during the week, and they were both there on weekends…but it wasn't quite filled-out yet, for all she loved it. Illusions were best preserved by isolation. The ease of Bing and James pervaded her own reality a little too brightly.

She had forgotten how that worked, too.

But Bing, ever gracious in her unknowing kindness, would not let silence fall. As unexpectedly as ever, Darcy was glad of it. Bing asked about George, and Fitz, and Darcy's work—as though anyone was really interested in corporate law but for corporate lawyers (and even then, interest was no sure thing). She asked about their house as though it really was the home they wanted it to be.

"And when is their mom coming?"

"I so want to call her Mom or Mother or Marmee or something," Bing mused. "But she is intimidating. I told her that, the other day. It made her laugh. She looks like Eli, a little, when she laughs."

Darcy knew.

Bing rearranged a few books on the shelves that James had made. "James and I want to help, you know, so it's not that. My work has a flexible enough schedule—did I tell you about that other freelancer I'm working with, at the moment? Yeah, so anyway, I would be home a lot. Which would be good. We don't want her to be alone."

"Of course not." Darcy felt like she was supposed to say something more, but it wouldn't come.

"Yeah, so. The real thing is that, even though she doesn't have the best relationship, I guess, with their dad…I think it's hard on her. And I think that James isn't the son she'd choose to live with—" Bing's hand went still, quite suddenly, putting _Robinson Crusoe_ in its place.

Darcy felt that strange, fluttering tightness that sometimes preceded a panic attack and sometimes didn't. She said nothing.

"I don't mean to suggest—" Bing was almost stumbling now. "I just meant—I just meant I'm sure—well, I think she has a hard time being happy. And that belongs to her, you know? But we will do our best. I think she could be happy here."

Darcy found her voice. "I hope so."

 _ii._

Sunday was his second favorite day.

Sunday, Darcy got herself up at six-thirty, invariably, and went to eight o'clock Mass. But after an hour, she came back, and was his again.

She had stopped asking him to come. Eli was capably familiar with guilt in all its forms, but he didn't yet have a name for the nagging whisper that accompanied that sight of Darcy leaving, shoulders tucked back, hair immaculately folded up in stately arrangement, as though he hadn't made it wild with his own hands.

He had breakfast made when she came back. That was something, wasn't it?

She slipped off her heels and padded into the kitchen.

"Hungry?" Eli inquired.

"Yeah." She plucked out one hairpin, then two, then three. Her hair spiraled down and unwound over her shoulders. "Eli, do you even believe in God?"

So much for not asking. He waited a beat, flipped another piece of bacon. "Why?"

Her eyes were gray and grave. "I'm just wondering."

 _Shit_. "If there is a God, he's kind of—"

"Eli." One of Darcy's eyebrows raised imperiously; that was interruption almost as sufficient as the word. "Just answer the question."

"I don't know."

That seemed to deflate her more than a simple _no_ would have, though he couldn't be sure. "Alright."

He wasn't enough. This was the first of many realizations. "I don't want to lie to you," he said. He turned off the stove and moved towards her. She was beautiful, but then, Darcy was always beautiful to him. Disapproving or not, she made everything else irrelevant. "You're the only proof I have."

"Oh, no. I'm not—"

It was his turn to interrupt. "You are the best part of my life. Nothing else compares. Not now, not ever. Believe me"—and the turn of phrase seemed all wrong—"I would know. I lived it."

And she had lived her life, with more loss than he had, and yet she went to kneel and pray every single week in spaces and ceremonies that seemed, to him, utterly empty.

"I know you weren't raised in it."

"That's part of it." He set two plates on the table. "I'm glad you find it so fulfilling."

"I don't feel it like that, most days," Darcy answered. She sat down, tucking her napkin precisely across her knees. "It's not about self-gratification."

Eli quirked a smile. "Doesn't seem much worth it, then."

Darcy poked at a slice of toast. "You're exploring the applicability of Shakespeare to modern storytelling, right?"

She knew he was, so the question was obviously a rhetorical one. Which meant she was going full lawyer on him, which was going to get very dangerous very quickly, but which was also very…hot. So. "Yes."

"How is Hamlet working out for you?"

"Considering its complexity, I'd say it has perhaps the most relevance to my project."

"Of course it does." Darcy took a sip of tea. " _I'm_ Hamlet."

He smirked, feeling the ground of her challenge. "Have you killed an uncle that I should know about?"

She quelled him with a look. "Nothing is more destructive than demanding that you remedy injustice with no morals to depend on but your own. Hamlet is a lot of people these days. People who find themselves thrust to the forefront of any kind of theater of universal blindness. _They_ can see, yes, but they stop looking for anything greater because they don't believe that there is time, or hope, to bring any good out of a broader view."

She meant, of course, that he was Hamlet too. That he had tried, when the world seemed a little easier, and then had drawn back, when the baby—

Darcy added, quietly, "It ends in madness."

 _…to say we end the heart-ache, and the thousand natural shocks that Flesh is heir to? 'Tis a consummation devoutly to be wished._

"I think," Eli said, too mesmerized to even properly eat his bacon, "That I should be taking notes."

Darcy wasn't finished. Not yet. Not until, he well knew, she brought it round to her initial point, and his initial flippancy. "Now you might not think that Hamlet has anything at all to do with religion, but it's a story about despair. And faith is the opposite of that. I'm alive because I'm Catholic. I'd have died if I stayed Hamlet."

"And I'd be no better than your Ophelia, is what you're saying?" _Rosemary, that's for remembrance_. Sometimes he still wondered if the baby had been a boy or a girl, a son or daughter.

"Melodramatic, certainly," Darcy said, but the sadness in her eyes faded a little. He nudged her foot under the table.

"Unfair." And with a straight shot of an arrow, puncturing the gathering cloudburst in his mind, he sent away the darkness. _For now_.

"Completely fair. You're writing about Shakespeare."

"It's hardly new, but _I_ have never done it before." He chuckled. "Right. There's that melodrama."

Her lips curved around the rim of her cup. "Am I still allowed to love you?"

"Never, never stop."

She sighed. He hoped it wasn't in disappointment. Then she tilted her head a little; a change of subject was brewing. "I might not be able to come up next weekend."

 _Why?_ He didn't ask why. "Oh, OK."

"This case is picking up. They might need me to be on call." She set down her fork. "I'll make it up to you, I promise."

He was on the other side of the table, and it was a little too wide to reach across and cover her hand in his. "No, no. It's fine. I can try to put your Hamlet observations to good use."

"Make sure you cite me."

"I'll put in a reference to my live-in lawyer, sure."

"MLA format."

"Without a doubt."

Darcy laughed. He loved the sound, for all that it was a rare one. She seemed to have forgotten his failings, at least for the moment. Visiting Bing must have done her good, even though she had been a little quiet on the way home, and even though he could never be everything she wanted him to be.

He let the warmth of autumn's singularly golden sun sink in along the lines of his shoulders.

Eli finished his breakfast.


	14. rational creatures

_"It is my unhappy fate seldom to treat people as well as they deserve." – Jane Austen, Letters_

 _i._

"Why didn't you just ask him to come here?" George inquired. He had blank sheet music paper splayed against one knee and a pen spinning between his fingers.

Darcy exhaled. In hindsight that would have been simpler, and possibly more generous. But to whom? She wanted Eli around all the time, but it wasn't fair to make him pack everything up and come to Manhattan, only to have her be gone Saturday and Sunday. "I don't know. It didn't seem to work." She nodded towards the sheaf of paper. "Is that for class?"

"Kind of. More like, channeling inspiration for school through my own personal inspiration." George grimaced. "As you can see, it's not really going anywhere."

Darcy shouldered on her jacket. "Is Mina coming to dinner tonight?"

"Yeah. If that's OK."

"Of course." It was practically George's apartment now, anyway. Darcy glanced at her watch, distracting herself from the unwelcome twinge of oncoming valuations. "I hope I'll be back by six. Logan said it shouldn't be a late night."

George dashed off a black note with a little wing rising from it. "I don't like this Logan guy."

Darcy stared at him. "Why not? He's just a guy from work."

"Who makes someone come in on a weekend?"

"That's just how these big firms work. He's been very accommodating." Not, of course, that Darcy gave him anything to accommodate.

"Hmph." George was almost scowling. Darcy bent down to hug him.

"Bye, Oscar."

"Oscar?"

"The Grouch. Come on. I let you watch Sesame Street."

" _Barely_."

But they were both laughing when Darcy went out the door, and she felt a little lift in spirits—just enough to be dampened, as usual, by Manhattan traffic.

She called Eli anyway.

"Hey, you." His voice in her ear made her want to shut her eyes, imagining him beside her.

"Hey. I'm just on my way in. How are the first papers going?" Eli's students had turned in their first assignment the day before.

She could hear him sigh. "You ever stare at a word so long you start to think _you're_ the one spelling it wrong?"

"No."

He laughed. "Show-off. Yeah, so, this one kid is writing about relativism in literature—incredibly broad, interesting, possibly, but he keeps calling it relativity. Like, Einstein's theory. Now, in terms of arguing on a theory of 'moral relativity,' I'm sure there's a great joke in there somewhere."

Darcy smiled. "You just can't find it?"

"Exactly. And I've got a stigmata of red ink all over my hands." He sounded rueful.

"Red pen. Very professorial."

Eli's voice changed. "I want you."

Darcy gripped the wheel a little tighter. "I'll see you in six days."

"Or sooner." Eli's voice became a little hesitant. "I mean, I could…come down there, a couple nights. If George and Fitz didn't mind."

"They'd love to see you! And the only reason—well, I didn't want to ask, because I know you're busy, and it's a lot, and I'm at work so much of the time…commuting would be kind of hellish for you." She switched lanes, and repeated, "I didn't want to ask."

"You can ask your husband stuff." He sounded amused, and she was grateful.

"All right. If it works for you, I'd love…nothing more. If you could come."

"I'd try to surprise you, but with my luck I'd catch the one night you were working late. How does tomorrow night sound? I'll head back up Monday morning."

"Good. That sounds good."

George would be happy too. In all of this—the harsh-turning road of the last few months—she hadn't been the sister she'd always promised George. But having Eli there would help appease that, if only for a little while. And George, when she'd arrived, had seemed happy.

 _"I'd tell you_ ," Fitz had said. _"I'd tell you if there was any reason to worry."_

Logan met her at the elevators. "I can't thank you enough for coming in. I know, I'm the bane of boyfriends of everywhere."

"Husband, actually, but he's fine." Darcy paused after she spoke. It wasn't a secret that she was married; she wore it on her hand, after all. Still, she tried to keep everything about her life that wasn't work, out of work.

"Husband!" Logan pressed the elevator button, letting her enter first. "Give him my best. He a lawyer too?"

"English teacher."

"Noble profession!"

Darcy nodded. "He's great."

Logan ducked his chin, lifted his eyebrows. "He must be."

Darcy shifted her briefcase to her other hand, watched the light blink up-up-up, felt the floor surge sluggishly beneath them. "What do you mean?"

"Oh." He seemed to have forgotten the question, though his gaze was steady. "Just…you strike me as someone with high standards." He grinned brightly. "I mean hey, that's why I picked you for this job."

And by all events, she'd been right to take him up on his offer. She was engaged, focused. Brought outside of herself, and that still mattered. She wasn't made to be perfectly content. She always had to reach, and it was safer to keep that reaching contained here.

"I think it's working," she announced to Fitz that night. George and Mina were doing the dishes. Fitz was marking passages in a textbook.

"What is?"

Darcy tugged aside the curtain with a window, letting the shadow and light of the city at night pattern on her face. "My work-life balance."

"Did you read that term in a magazine?"

"Shut up."

Fitz cracked his neck and put the book down. "Is there something bothering you?"

Darcy turned to glower at him. "Didn't I just say that everything was fine?"

"You wouldn't have brought it up if you didn't have something to prove," Fitz countered mildly.

"Sometimes I think I was meant to be alone," Darcy said. "But I don't want to be. So I'm lucky, because I found someone who's willing…well, willing to put up with me."

Fitz said nothing for a moment. He linked fingers around his knee. "I don't want you to take this wrong way…"

"So I will." Darcy turned back to the window so she didn't have to look him the eye when he said whatever it was he was going to say.

"Everyone gets to choose their passion. If yours is grinding your soul up every day of the week, so be it." Fitz paused. "But I just…Eli's not going to tell you when he's not doing well. Not yet, at least."

Anything Darcy said would sound defensive, so she fixed a steely gaze on the glitter of traffic, inching along below and kept her mouth shut.

"He doesn't think he's good enough for you, so he doesn't want to bring you down."

"That's not…"

"I'm not saying it's true, I'm just saying it's what he thinks." Fitz picked up the textbook again. "And who knows, maybe there is a way to do everything you're doing. But living through something and actually looking at it are too different things."

She felt a wave of anger, but it wasn't exactly at Fitz.

"Thanks." Her voice was stiff, and she knew it.

"You took it the wrong way."

She rubbed her shoulder. "Not really. I just wish he could see it's the other way around."

Fitz's brow crinkled. "You're not good enough for him?"

"Exactly."

"Ugh!" Fitz threw his hands in the air. "Damn it, Darth. Why can't either of you see? That's not what it's about. Nobody's good enough for anybody, that way."

"You're very lecture-y tonight," said Darcy, grimly. Maybe Logan was right. Her standards were high—too high—for everything, and that included herself. But living something and looking at it— _shut up, inner Fitz. Outer Fitz is sufficient._ "I'm going to bed."

 _ii._

He woke on Saturday morning without Darcy. He'd grown used to her sleeping next to him, and whenever he was alone he still slept with an emptiness on the right side of the bed. Darcy had this habit, when she was sleeping, of bending her hands at the wrist and tucking them under her chin.

Missing her was a physical ache. It settled in the knots of his shoulders and just behind his eyes, dissipating a little only when she called him on her way in to work. When he hung up, he stared at his fingertips. There wasn't as much red ink on them as he'd pretended. Grading papers was a slow business.

Around noon, he heard a familiar rumble in the driveway. He craned his neck and looked out the kitchen window—stopped and looked again.

It was the truck. James' old truck.

Levi and Cody tumbled out of it.

Eli surveyed them from the doorstep, pretending he wasn't happy to see them, though he was. "What are you two idiots doing here?"

"Came to remind you that we're your relations," Levi said, slamming the door shut.

"James told us we should visit you sometime," Cody admitted.

"Fair, I suppose." Eli tucked his hands in his pockets. It had been a while since he'd seen them. Levi might have grown another inch.

"Where's your trophy wife?" Cody asked.

Levi elbowed him. "Dude, he's the trophy husband. C'mon."

"You're both dumbasses," said Eli, but he let them inside all the same.

They wandered the house like it was a museum, and Eli felt a twinge of guilt. James had offhandedly mentioned how often the younger boys visited him and Bing-practically weekly-but this was the first time they had come here.

And Darcy wasn't even around.

"Did you eat?"

They stared at him blankly.

"Of course not." He shook his head, led the way to the kitchen, and took out the makings of grilled cheese.

"What the hell, dude," Cody complained. "You have normal cheese."

"As opposed to..." Eli quirked a threatening eyebrow.

"Some fancy crap. You're like, filthy rich now!"

Levi, who had personally benefited from Darcy's wealth, had the good grace to look abashed.

"Eat the damn sandwiches," Eli growled, when the maligned sandwiches were completed. He hadn't played mom in a while, but judging from how the boys scarfed them down, he hadn't lost his touch.

Eli waited until they were finished, then said, "So, how're things?"

"Fine." Levi swiped at the crumbs on his plate with a finger. He and Cody were both taking classes at community college, but though Eli was interested in how that was going, he knew asking directly might make them clam up all the more.

Not that Cody was in danger of clamming up, particularly. "So, did you hear about Mom?"

"What about Mom?"

"She's moving in with James."

Levi was staring down. Eli said, "Yeah, dude. I talk to James. Remember?"

"Right." Cody sighed. "Anyway, she's moving in two weeks. Do you think it will last?"

"James and Bing are pretty patient," Eli said, clearing away the plates. "I don't see why not."

"No, I mean, like…the Mom and Dad thing."

Levi looked up.

Eli pinched the bridge of his nose. "I don't know. Maybe."

"Really?" Levi sounded lost.

There was so much natural light in the kitchen, but it felt a little cramped. Eli set the dishes in the sink, ran the faucet over them quickly, and said, "Let's go outside."

They followed him. Eli said, "Show me how you've been taking care of the truck."

He wasn't James. He wasn't ever going to be James, and he wished that James could be _here_ , but this might just be the next best thing.

They had never cared much about the truck before James gave it to them, but that was the mystery of Bennetts: they had a complicated relationship with responsibility. Now, given the prompt, Cody and Levi were both eager to show off their handiwork. How about this paint job? And did Eli see the new fender? Ha! It wasn't new. They'd just refurbished it.

Eli, who hated mechanic work with the same passion he always had, still knew a great deal about it. They filled the better part of an hour with tinkering, and afterward, he pulled out a couple of beers.

"What about me?" Levi whined.

Eli rolled his eyes. "Someone has to drive back, doofus, and I'm not betting on either of you lightweights."

"I'm not a lightweight," Levi mumbled, but he slurped down a soda with relatively good grace. Much better grace, notably, than Levi of a few years ago would have.

They sat on the steps. It was afternoon. The time had gone by and Eli hadn't spent all of it aching about Darcy. He hoped that was a good thing.

"So where is she?" Cody asked.

"Darcy?"

"Yeah."

"She had to work this weekend. She's usually here."

"Huh. Do you like being married to her?"

"Yes."

They finished their drinks. Then Eli said, "OK, the thing about Mom and Dad is this. They're both stubborn, and Dad's dumb. You know that, right?"

They nodded.

"Sometimes Mom wants him to be dumb and sometimes she doesn't. Right now she doesn't. So it all depends on Mom."

"But Dad's the one who bought the new place…" Levi said, frowning.

"That's probably not going to last." Eli rolled the bottlecap between his fingers, catching the sharp fluted edge with the tip of his thumb. "He'll come back and want to make things right with her again, eventually. It's familiar to him."

"And then she'll decide," Cody finished. He sounded a little breathless.

"Yes. But there's nothing any of us can do about it now."

"Mom only listens to you," Levi pointed out.

Eli swallowed. "It's not that simple."

Cody leaned back on his elbows. They were kind of a tight fit, the three of them on the steps, but nobody was complaining. Eli had one on either side of him.

Cody said, "You know it's weird, that Mom's going to live with James."

"Why?" But Eli already knew.

"We all thought she'd only want to live with you."

 _So did I._ Eli flicked his eyebrows up, and said nothing aloud.


	15. as well as everybody else

_"Know your own happiness." – Sense & Sensibility_

 _i._

"I like our bed back home better."

"This is a three-thousand-dollar mattress better," Darcy said, propping herself up on her elbows. And then—"Does it feel like home to you, there?" It was a question she hadn't known she needed to ask.

Eli's lashes—frustratingly long—grazed her cheek as he leaned in to steal a kiss. "Yeah. Does it feel like that to you?"

"It's starting to." She rolled off the bed and tiptoed to the window, tugging the curtains shut. "But when you're here, this is alright too."

Eli sighed. "You know, one of my students quoted Nietzsche in her paper."

"Really?"

"Yeah. _To live is to suffer, to survive is to find some meaning in the suffering._ She also quoted Bruno Mars."

"Not _Grenade_?"

" _It Will Rain_."

"Interesting." Darcy tugged off her blouse and hunted for a t-shirt. "So, which one did you think was a more effective inclusion?"

"Bruno, obviously."

She loved his voice. She loved the way his eyes were soft when he looked at her. She could hear Fitz in her head saying, _he doesn't think he's good enough for you_.

"Can I tell you something?"

Eli sat up, chin on hand, elbow on knee. "Anything."

"It's about my parents." Darcy played with the hem of her t-shirt. It wasn't the Star Wars one.

"OK," Eli said.

"I'm very protective of their memory." Darcy laced her fingers together. Damn Fitz, she couldn't believe she was doing this. "It seems—like a good way to keep them very far away, because that way, at least I know I'm not being unfair to them."

"You don't have to explain anything to me." Eli shook his head quickly.

"Because you don't deserve it?" Darcy asked, and the words weren't supposed to sound like that, all stark and blunt and oh, why had she thought she could do this?

Eli looked like he'd been stabbed, but only in the way his eyes changed and only for a second. It made Darcy want to drop to her knees.

"I don't—you do deserve everything. From me. I just—I thought—I think I'm supposed to understand that you feel that way, sometimes, and I…"

The line of his mouth relaxed a little. "Did Fitz tell you?"

She was startled. "You talked to Fitz?"

Eli ran a hand through his hair, tipping his head down. "Nah. He's just got a keen eye for my insecurities. In a nice way, of course."

She wanted to sit beside him, wrap both arms around his waist. _Hold_.

Instead she kept talking. "You know." She dragged the blunt edges of her nails along one cold-prickled forearm. "They had been fighting."

"Your parents?" Eli stared at her, lips parted a little in surprise. "What do you mean?"

"Their marriage was in trouble." The words hung like rain drops; each its own entity at first, then pooling together somewhere beneath her feet. "My mom didn't come from wealth. She never really got used to it. She was…pretty good at looking like she did. She learned all the right phrases and all the right smiles, but her patience was pretty thin."

Eli said nothing, so Darcy continued. On a scale of one to heartbreak, it wasn't the hardest thing she'd ever done. "They didn't want me to get involved. They were really good parents." She said that last to the shadow-cast walls. There were never enough places in the world at which to throw a sentiment that belonged, by rights, to the dead. "They were really good parents. They didn't try to…put me between them, or anything. But I wanted to be. I thought I could fix it." There were pieces, too, that couldn't be told right now, because they didn't fit. Like Gemma, always tagging along because it gave Darcy's mother some semblance of purpose, some promise that she wasn't betraying her own poorer past. "I saw things so clearly. They just needed to talk. They just needed some time, to remind themselves how much they really were in love." Darcy blinked twice, upwards. "They took my father's private jet and went to Cancun."

She watched Eli's hands close, tighten.

Darcy said, "I thought it would make things better. See—it was _my_ idea."

Eli didn't answer. But he stood up, and crossed the space between them in two strides, and took her in his arms.

"It's ok," Darcy whispered, against his chest. "I don't really cry about it anymore."

Neither of them let go.

His lips were on her hair.

"I make them sound like they're…I don't talk about that, because I feel like that means I would have to talk about them more. But I don't want you to feel—do you know why I—"

"I'm not good enough for you." Eli continued before she could interrupt him. "But I will love you enough. I promise."

Darcy tightened both her arms around his waist.

…

"You're pretty out of it today," Logan said the next day, handing her a cup of coffee.

Darcy snapped every kink out of her spine, ramrod straight at once. "I'm so sorry."

His lips twisted in a half-smile. "It's…it's fine. You're human, Darcy. You're allowed to daydream."

"I wasn't daydreaming." She'd been thinking about last night.

"Did your loyal husband come down for the weekend?'

"He did, actually." She'd been on this assignment with Logan for a while now, it only made sense that occasionally personal stuff would come up. "It was really nice." She turned back to the papers. "Again, I'm sorry. I'll concentrate now."

They worked on in silence for a while. When she next glanced up, Logan was wincing.

"Are you alright?"

"Not really." He winced again. "I'm whining, I know."

"Can I get something for you?"

He waved a hand, then paused. "Actually…um, this is kind of a weird request." He grimaced. "Ever since I was in college, I get this awful hand cramps when I'm typing. I'm supposed to wear these special gloves, can you believe it?"

Darcy rolled her eyes. "What, like some kind of Bond villain?"

"Yes," he said, slurring into a bad Sean Connery. "Precisely."

"What's the problem."

He held his hand out, palm up. "Can you just like, press right there? Between those two fingers?" He laughed a little. "Don't worry, I swear I have hand sanitizer. I know what a germaphobe you are."

Darcy shrugged. "I keep a bottle in my purse, don't worry." She felt a little awkward, but he was obviously in pain. This was one of those moments, probably, where Bing would have whipped out a little Florence Nightingale cap. She reached out, curved her fingers under his, and pressed her thumb down. "Does that—uh, help?"

"Yeah. Thanks so much. Just keep—like ten seconds or so usually does it. They're just both really bad today. Agh. I know, I know. It makes me seem like an old arthritic dude."

"No, it just makes you seem like someone who doesn't want to follow the doctor's orders for fear of being Goldfinger or whoever."

"Gold _finger_. Ha. Nice pun."

"I'm occasionally witty." She paused. "Do you want me to do the other one?"

"That would be great." He stretched out his other hand. "Speaking of gold fingers, you have really strong hands. Were you a pianist or something?"

"No," Darcy said, shaking her head. "It never took. My brother George is brilliant, though."

"Well, there are other hand jobs I guess." He jolted a little. "Shit. Sorry. That came out really wrong. Oh my gosh. I really am turning into an old geezer, always saying something accidentally pervy."

Darcy let go of his hand and reached for her purse, which was leaning against the desk. "Maybe a geriatric ward will have the answers." She pursed her lips. "Do you have the gloves? You should probably put them on."

"Left them at home." He tipped his head back, aiming a rueful glance upwards. "That's it for typing today."

"Why don't we talk through their brief again?"

"Good plan." He smiled. It was an intriguing thing, she thought, how everyone's smile was so different. His smile didn't have the connection of Eli's, or the warmth of Fitz's, or George's open joy. No, he was better suited to being a lawyer. He had a shark's smile.

But then—she probably did, too.

 _ii._

"Mr. Bennett?"

"Hi, Ava."

She was holding her essay between two fingers. "B _minus_?"

Eli maintained a serious expression. "Yeah. You had a strong argument, but you didn't really bring it through to the conclusion."

"What do you mean?" She smoothed her hair behind her ear.

"This paragraph here—you start out by describing Plath's difficult background but you don't connect the quotes you're offering—down here—to what you've presented on her life."

"OK." She chewed her lip.

"It's not a big percent of your grade, I promise," Eli said. Not, of course, that that would be much of a comfort if this girl was anything like Darcy.

"Just wanted to ask." She rolled the paper up in her hand and gave him a tight smile.

Eli drummed his pencil on the desk and wondered if a B, flat-out, would have been fairer.

"I see you've met Ava."

He looked up to see a stranger standing in the doorway of the classroom. He was a guy in his fifties, probably, with wire-rimmed glasses and a salt-and-pepper beard.

"Yeah," Eli said. "First paper graded, and all that."

"First of many unhappy students," the stranger said. "But they all come around. I'm Pat Gregory, by the way. Read your thesis. Apathy and the apocalypse? Very interesting. You must not be a Catholic."

Eli grinned, a little sheepishly, and shook hands. "No. My wife is, though."

"Written before you met her?"

"During our…early acquaintance, actually."

"Fascinating. I teach a few upper-level lit courses, by the way. That's probably where you're headed, isn't it?"

Eli shuffled the papers on his desk together and tucked them in his satchel. "Maybe. I'm not sure."

"That's alright. I wanted to introduce myself all the same, because I remember being in your shoes. Do you have time for a coffee?"

Eli had only an empty house ahead of him, but he wasn't going to see so. "Yes, actually."

Professor Gregory lived with his wife—both his children were grown—and their English bulldog, whose name was Tolstoy. Eli admired the proffered photographs.

"So," Professor Gregory said. "Would you write the same thesis today?"

"Not all in one day," Eli said wryly, sipping his americano. "But…to be serious, I don't know. When I began it, I thought I had seen the end of the world. Turns out, I hadn't."

Professor Gregory folded his hands together. "You're probably wondering why I made the comment about Catholicism. Very bold, I know, in a secular school. To a stranger. They'll revoke my tenure." Professor Gregory chuckled. "But honestly, if you must know of the end of the world—well, I'd thought I'd found the end of my road, at least. You see, I had entered the seminary to become a priest."

Eli gestured briefly. "And…you're not."

"No, I'm not. I was advised to leave—not harshly, but quite properly, because I couldn't stop thinking about this girl I'd left behind."

"Your wife?"

"No, in fact. Peggy didn't turn out to be my wife. I met her—Janet—later. But leaving the seminary was very much the right decision."

Eli finished his coffee. "Are you still Catholic?"

"Yes. Thus I had a strange premonition that I needed to talk to you." His eyes were dark and piercing. "The nudge of some saint. You'd like some of them. They were dour and dramatic."

"You already seem to know me so well, if you can call out my character like that," Eli answered, amused.

"Maybe not your character, but your thesis, certainly."

It was a fair point. Eli knew it was. "I thought you liked it."

"I did. But only as an opening act. I think you have real potential. What are you writing now?"

Eli lifted a rueful brow. "Grades on papers."

"That's not all, surely."

Eli heaved a sigh. "Fine. You drive a hard bargain. I'm actually analyzing which Shakespeares lend themselves most readily to modern adaptation and parallels."

This seemed to please Professor Gregory. With a napkin, he dabbed away a foam accoutrement to his mustache. "Ah, so you've decided to rejoin the living."

"Nothing more living than Shakespeare."

"This is your wife's influence. Who is she? Hermia? Rosalind? Beatrice?"

Eli smiled, half to himself. "She's Hamlet," he said. "But she wrote herself a different ending."

Professor Gregory was practically beaming. "Excellent," he said. "You'll have to come and meet Janet and Tolstoy—both of you." He stood up, leaving a few bills on the table. "I've got dinner to make at home. But I'm glad I followed poor Ava's interview." They shook hands. "You'll come to dinner sometime?"

Eli paused, then said, "We will."


	16. the finest balm

_"I may have lost my heart, but not my self-control. " – Jane Austen, Emma_

 _i._

October flamed red and gold around their house, and made its presence known by little more than a shift in the air conditioning at her office.

Of nights—nights when she made the trek upstate, despite Eli telling her it was fine to wait until the weekend—Darcy found him hunched over the glow of his laptop.

She rested her palm against the back of his neck, fingers playing with his hair. The ends were beginning to curl.

"I know," he said, drawing her other hand to his lips, and kissing each finger in turn, lingering but absent. His eyes were still on the screen. "I need a haircut."

"I kind of like it like this."

"Wild?"

"Yes."

Eli stood up, closing the laptop. "That's enough of _Tempest_ for today," he said, and kissed her properly so that her heart thudded and fluttered in her throat.

"Is it going well?"

He didn't answer. "Darcy, you've got to stop doing this." The words were whispered against her temple.

It was hard, it was _always_ hard, not to shrink back from unknown reproaches. "Doing what?"

"Driving up here. It's a Wednesday. It's going to kill you."

Darcy stepped out of his embrace, hung up her scarf. Dropped those damn shoes from her feet.

No, this wasn't what was going to kill her. She thought back to the long days she'd put in already, all the Wednesdays stretching out since she'd started this case. It was taking…not too long, but longer than she'd thought. Logan seemed pleased with their progress though. He'd learned her favorite takeout and he tried to make her laugh.

He wasn't very good at it, but most people weren't, and he didn't seem to mind.

Of course, neither of them had been laughing last Thursday, when Logan had asked her to stop by his place to pick up some forms and she'd arrived to find him in boxer shorts and a dress shirt, eating cheerios.

He'd texted her the wrong time to meet.

Darcy had wondered, in the practical and permanent half of her brain that had always been ageless, if there was a _right_ time to shift work to a supervisor's home.

The flush of embarrassment had taken hours—or what seemed like hours—to dissipate. Logan had apologized three times. Twice in his doorway, and once later that day when he'd shown up to work, in his usual sleek suit.

Darcy kept meaning to relay the story to Eli, but hadn't yet.

" _Darcy_."

She snapped back to the present moment, where there was a line deepening between Eli's arched brows.

"I'm sorry," she said numbly. "I…I _am_ tired, I guess. Can we just…curl up in bed and watch something?"

Eli nodded. His eyes were soft, but his lips curved in a teasing grin. "I DVR-ed _Project Runway_ for you."

"For _us_ , you mean?"

"Obviously."

Darcy microwaved popcorn. Eli ate it with his left hand, since he had considerately allowed Darcy to use his right arm as a pillow.

"Your neck feels tense."

She twisted a little so that he could benefit from the skeptical tilt of her eyebrow. "You can feel that through your bicep?"

He smirked. "Don't insult them."

"I'm not." Her eyes drifted back to the television screen. "I talked to Bing on my way up today."

"Really?"

"Yeah." She hadn't told Bing about the weird thing with Logan either. Had she even mentioned Logan to Bing? She always just called him _my boss_. Why did she keep circling back to this? "She said that, um, your mom is moving in tomorrow."

She couldn't tell if Eli was holding his breath against her. "Yeah. I know."

"James must keep you in the loop."

"He does." He crooked his elbow so that his arm was across her chest. "I haven't talked to her lately, though."

"Did you…did you used to?" She realized that, in the months of their marriage—and even before—she had always drawn some kind of mental perimeter around Eli's relationship with his mother. She'd called it respect. Maybe it was something else.

"Well, babe, I used to _live_ there."

She would have elbowed him for the sarcasm, usually, but not over this. "This was something I should have…damn it, Eli. I never know what I'm supposed to say. As a wife."

There was a little space of silence. Then she felt Eli shake with quiet laughter. "You're a good enough wife for me. What do you think you're supposed to ask?"

"I think we're supposed to talk more about your family."

"Why?" She could hear the edge creep back into his voice. "Because they're awful?"

"Because they're alive." Darcy reached up so that she could wrap a hand around his wrist where it had settled just below her shoulder. She traced her fingers over the tendons of his hand. "I feel like…you're carrying it around, and if we talked about—your mom, it would help." If Fitz was coaching her inside her head, what of it?

"My mom is always going to be unhappy," Eli said. "I don't blame her."

"But she wants you to be unhappy too?" Darcy scarcely dared to say it.

He shifted a little. Restless, maybe. "No. She wants me to be happy. Just not _too_ happy." He exhaled fully a last. On screen, Tim Gunn's forehead was furrowing with deep concern, but they'd muted the show and put subtitles on, so Darcy was barely paying attention. Eli said, "My parents met when my mom was on a break from college. She got pregnant in August."

Darcy didn't say anything. She knew bits and pieces of this story, of course—from Eli and from the others; from James through Bing. She'd been together with Eli for more than a year before they got married. But mostly, he'd wanted to talk about _them_ , and their future. Eli only rarely talked openly about the unseen details of his family's past.

"My grandmother was a single mom," Eli said, now. "Mom didn't want to be like her, so she married Dad. She didn't go back to college."

"But I thought she was a nurse."

"She was. She did nursing school when I was a baby."

She'd seen pictures of him. Curly hair and grave dark eyes. No laughter. Not yet.

"I was a really good baby. I think that's why I'm her favorite. She used to take me to her classes and I wouldn't make a sound."

Darcy nestled against him, resting a hand against the flat plane of his stomach. "James must have missed you."

He pressed his lips to her temple. "Well, yeah. But he loved following Dad around. That was back when Dad still, you know. Worked." He sighed again, and snagged another piece of popcorn, like they were actually watching the television. "So, yeah. Dad and James and me and Mom. We were actually pretty happy then, I think."

"What happened?"

"It's all Mark's fault." He chuckled dryly. "No, it's really not. I'm not sure, actually. Mom got her degree when I was like, two or three or something. And she worked—well, she worked up until her accident. And that helped. It wasn't all crap, you know. But Dad was always going to be Dad. I think he loved her best when she was his summer fling. He wouldn't have stayed, if she hadn't made him."

Darcy wanted to understand, but there was a part of her that—well, that couldn't. "So it's not all bad," she said, as softly as she knew how. "It just stopped being good."

"That's one way of putting it."

"You don't have to tell me any more."

"It's alright." He tilted the remote up with his free hand, switching off the television. The only light left in the room was the honey-glow of the lamp on Darcy's bedside table. "What I'm trying to say is, my parents have been mostly miserable for a long time. You don't have to ask about it just because it sucks."

 _I just want to know what you're scared of._ She couldn't get the words out. Darcy pushed herself up a little further so that they were eye-to-eye. "And what I'm trying to say is, you can always tell me how it's going, if you want to."

" _So, how's it going_?"

The question came next day. Alexis slanted a curious glance in her direction and Darcy stiffened under it almost involuntarily.

"How's what going?"

"You're kidding. Your special project with _Bro_ gan over there."

"You've taken to nicknaming partners?" Darcy retorted.

Alexis shrugged. "Fair point. He's not dumb enough to be a bro." Somehow it didn't sound like a compliment.

"The case is going fine," Darcy said. "Should be wrapped up in a couple weeks. I'm sure that you'll receive all the information to which you are entitled."

Alexis stared at her, lips parted, as if she couldn't think of another jab or didn't care to. At last she said, "You're married, right?"

Darcy knew the rules of chess. It was times like these when they didn't seem to apply, when her hand was fumbling with unseen pieces. "Yes. Why?"

Alexis smiled. It didn't reach her eyes. "No reason."

 _ii._

"So, Eli. Have you ever tried your hand at fiction?"

The answer was yes, but not for Professor Gregory's ears. Not that Eli distrusted him—quite the contrary. Professor and Mrs. Gregory were sort of a comfortable parallel to Uncle Will and Aunt Molly. Immediately upon drawing the comparison, he realized that they were nothing alike.

 _You just like them all. You trust them all. It makes you assume they're all the same._

"Not seriously," he said, setting down fork and knife and refusing to flush over the memory of some torturous attempts at high fantasy that existed in a notebook somewhere in the muddle of his and James' stuff.

James had always been an enthusiastic audience for Eli's…masterpieces. Or at least, in his selfless way, he'd put up a convincing front.

Eli had a lot to answer for, considering what he'd put James through.

"Pat is always writing poetry in his spare time," Mrs. Gregory confided, heaping yet more mashed potatoes onto Eli's plate. They were uncommonly good, so he wasn't complaining. "I'm very simple-minded, though, and I only like it if it rhymes."

"You've got all the classics behind you then," Eli said. "I guess I would expect poetry to be like everything else…you have to learn its bones before you can—you know, dissect it." He grimaced. "Wow, that sounded like a very rudimentary English comp paper. Sorry."

Professor Gregory raised his wineglass in a cheerful salute. "Not in the least. I approve. Are you familiar with one of Tolkien's— _Mythopoeia_?"

Eli winced without meaning to. "Yeah."

And _there_ was a memory.

He'd read in rebellion, at twelve—thirteen—fourteen. Elbows on the dinner table, when Mom wasn't downstairs anymore, with a book lying open above his plate. Dad had hated it, because Dad hated everything that made him _not_ the center of attention.

One night, during a particularly heated dinner that had Dad needling Eli and Eli stonily ignoring him, Dad had reached over and snatched _The Fellowship of the Ring_ from its place by Eli's plate and tossed it in the woodstove before Eli was even out of his chair.

(Eli had cried.)

(That was almost the worst of it.)

Even now—a good decade-and-a-half later—the memory made bile rise in Eli's throat. Anger and humiliation, combined, were awfully close to hatred.

And James had separated them, James had bought another copy, James had scribbled, in his looping script, a few verses into the front inside cover so that this new copy would be better than the one that burned.

 _Such isles they saw afar, and ones more fair,_

 _and those that hear them yet may yet beware._

 _They have seen Death and ultimate defeat,_

 _and yet they would not in despair retreat,_

 _but oft to victory have tuned the lyre_

 _and kindled hearts with legendary fire,_

 _illuminating Now and dark Hath-been_

 _with light of suns as yet by no man seen._

"Yes," Eli said, taking the wine that was offered him. "I'm familiar with the poem."

"What I love about that poem," Professor Gregory said—and he had two kids, didn't he? Definitely not the kind of dad who threw their things in the fire—"Is that it acknowledges the unity of artists. We tend to see ourselves as very individualistic. But the experience, the essence, is much more universal than we would expect."

 _And yet they would not in despair retreat…_

Tolstoy trotted over and pressed his broad bulldog head against Eli's shin. Eli reached down to pat him. "So you're saying that even if I deny my authorial destiny, it exists in me nonetheless."

"A natural law theory of creative writing, yes," Professor Gregory agreed, with a wry smile. He looked young, almost boyish, when he smiled.

His wife nodded at him benevolently. "I'm sure _he_ warned you, but Pat here is going to try to convert you at some point, if he hasn't already. You don't have to feel obliged. He even told me that we had a _future Catholic_ coming to dinner tonight."

Pat's eyes twinkled.

Eli wasn't offended. "I've already told your husband, actually, that my wife would be happy if he won me over."

"I really want to meet her," Mrs. Gregory—Janet—said, folding up her napkin. "You said her name is Darcy?"

"It's a nickname, yeah. Dorothy is her full name—but nobody calls her that. Not even me."

"How did you two meet?" Janet clasped her hands together and then smiled apologetically. "I'm sorry. I just always want to know these things. Humor an old-ish lady."

Eli bit back a smile, remembering. "We met at a party. She…wasn't impressed."

Pat laughed. Janet gaped, indignant. "Oh, please! You're very…easy on the eyes, young man."

Eli winked at her, "Well, thank you, but I was also an—" he almost said _asshole_ , and caught himself at the last second. "A jerk. So yeah. We had a bit of…a rough start."

"What brought you together, finally?" Pat asked the question this time.

"I learned I'd been wrong about her." Eli stared into middle distance. It wouldn't have worked for Darcy to be here—it was a Thursday night, and she was in Manhattan, where she belonged (at least, where she belonged _for now_ , a treacherous little part of his heart couldn't help but suggest). "And then…we got along better. And better, and then she, uh. She really helped my family out with something." He wasn't going to get into details. The ghosts of past shames had reared their silent heads enough already this evening. "She didn't take credit, or anything. And—well, I found out all the same. I realized I was in love. I thought it was too late. But she's very patient. Her heart had waited for me."

Janet released a long sigh. "Don't tell me you can't write poetry," she said. "It's all in your voice."

Maybe he should write Darcy poetry, Eli reflected, as he drove home (if home it could be called when _she_ wasn't there). He imagined warmth rising in her pale cheeks. Imagined that maddening gaze, all quiet _want_ , meeting his.

Yes, maybe he should write Darcy poetry.

But the house was gray-dark and hollow when he went inside, and he realized he was tired. Too tired, tonight, to do anything but fall asleep with his hand stretched over the space on the right side of the bed.


	17. half agony, half hope

**A/N: Please note there is some mild creepiness of the workplace variety ahead in the first half.**

 _"Where so many hours have been spent in convincing myself that I am right, is there not some reason to fear I may be wrong?"_ – _Jane Austen,_ Sense and Sensibility

 _i._

The case wasn't winding down. It was coming to a head, and from all that Darcy could tell, it might just well make or break her career as Logan's. He had negotiated some sufficient understanding among the partners that she answered to him alone for the moment.

She was—generally happy, if she judged happiness the way she had for years: the rush of invigorating work. Some days Logan cut her to ribbons over a misworded sentence; other days, he told her that he couldn't get on without her.

"We understand each other," he had said once, holding her gaze.

But Darcy was rarely understood.

Breakthroughs and smoking guns, such as they were, just meant more meetings. Darcy stayed late one night, then the next, and the next, and other than reading Eli's occasional texts with an aching heart, it was like time and her outside life had ceased to exist. Everything here—papers, the sharp stinging scent of highlighters—was fluorescently vivid. She pressed her forehead with her fingertips and reminded herself to blink.

Logan was drinking a Red Bull, reviewing the proposed settlement agreement again. He looked up with a spark of amusement in his eyes. It wasn't a red-pen day, then. "Sitting hunched over like that isn't going to help you much."

"The conference is tomorrow. I'm worried that they're going to—"

He interrupted, shaking his head. "No, I can't allow it. You've used the word _worried_ five times in the past two hours."

"You counted?" Darcy demanded, self-conscious.

"I did." He stood up and came close beside her. The rest of the office was all glassy darkness—even the most harried associates had gone home. "You should let your shoulders relax. You know how parents always say not to cross your eyes, they'll stick that way?"

Darcy didn't wince. "I may have."

He put a hand to the side of his mouth and lowered his voice to a stage whisper. "Shoulder muscles are like that, too."

She cocked an eyebrow at him. "Fascinating. Did they cover that in your geriatric consultation, too?" She knew she should control her snark, but it was late and he wasn't in boss-mode at the moment, so she'd permit herself the liberty.

"Hey, I've been wearing the gloves and they've been helping, thank you very much." He reached out a hand, and then drew it back. "OK, so I'm going to tell you something so embarrassing you have to swear never to tell anyone."

Darcy shot him a level stare. "I don't think attorney-client privilege applies in this instance."

"Never mind." He threw up his hands. "I rescind all embarrassing confidences, offers to help…"

"To help?" Darcy shuffled the papers in front of her into a neater stack.

"Fine. My aunt was a massage therapist. And every holiday, when everyone started getting stressed out, we literally formed a conga line of shoulder massages. It was screwed up."

"It sounds like hell," Darcy retorted, flatly. "I hate being touched."

Softly, he said, "I knew your husband was a brave man." He was standing behind her now.

 _Eli_. She'd meant to call him, dammit—and now it was after eleven. She hadn't even responded to his last text. Darcy rubbed her forehead, and then stiffened. Logan's hands had settled, warm and heavy, on her shoulders.

"What are you doing?"

"No conga lines, I promise. Just… _relax_." He had long fingers—they stretched past her collarbone, prodding at her tense muscles.

Darcy sat still. He kept talking. "So, you ready for tomorrow? Tell me for real. Take all that self-doubt out of it."

"I think so."

His thumb hooked over the edge of her collar, smoothing over her skin. "You're going to crush them. There's a reason I picked you."

"I work hard."

"Yeah, you do." He had planted his feet by the legs of her chair.

Darcy's stomach twitched sourly, like she'd had too much coffee and not enough sleep. "Do you expect them to settle?"

"Not on the first go-around, no. But we've scared them—that's why they're meeting—and we'll get them there." His other fingers followed his thumb, under her collar. The tip of one finger explored the dent of her shoulder. He grazed her bra strap—

Darcy stood up abruptly and stepped away. "I—"

He was staring at her, confused. "Are you OK?"

"I…" why was she so tongue-tied? "I…I don't like being touched. Sorry." Why was she apologizing? God, it was late. The weird sensation in her stomach was clawing upwards.

"I'm sorry," Logan said quickly. "Why don't we call it a night? You need to get sleep for tomorrow."

Darcy nodded briskly. She said goodnight and left. The elevator smelled like cigarette smoke. The city felt as wide and remotely chaotic as a bad dream.

Darcy fixed her collar, fixed it again.

It was late. Too late to call Bing, or Fitz. In the old days, she could have called Fitz, late or not, but now she wasn't supposed to be doing that. She had Eli.

She should stay at the apartment. But no, that would wake George. This, of course, was irrational—she'd come home as late as this before.

Darcy was not being rational. She drove, and drove, like the magnet was somewhere else, not cloyingly strong and buried in her own chest.

It would be after midnight when she got home. It would be the eerie quiet of a new day.

He'd be asleep.

Only, he wasn't. When Darcy finally pulled in, unlocked the front door, and stumbled inside, kicking off her heels, Eli was sitting on the couch, a book in his hands. He looked ready to drop.

"Hey," he said. "Is everything OK?" He didn't say, _you forgot to call_ , but he was probably thinking it. He would be right to.

Darcy felt tiny, without her heels on. But her feet were sore. "Hey. I'm so sorry I didn't call…I got caught up."

He stood up, book forgotten. "Why did you come home?"

She almost shrunk from that, but forced herself to stand steely-still. "I wanted to see you."

That got a smile out of him—all soft and tired at the corners, but so very, very dear. "OK." He yawned. "Just this once, though. I don't want you driving when you're wiped—"

She had crossed the floor, grabbed him by the collar, and cut him off with a kiss.

He kissed her back, but then pulled away, confused. "What's that for?"

"I'm sorry," she said. "I'll make it up to you. I promise."

"Make what up to me?"

"All this awful…work. I'm so sorry, Eli. I shouldn't have let you marry me. I shouldn't have—" She was talking through it in an almost brittle way, like that could control how much of the fluorescent world was real.

His eyes swept over her face, like he didn't recognize something he saw there. "Babe. It's alright. It was just a long night. Let's go to bed."

She took his hand. The sour feeling that had swirled all through her, all the miles between here and there, went suddenly still.

Still, yes, but it stayed.

 _ii._

"Eli!" Bing enveloped him in a hug and he just stayed there for a good few seconds, soaking in the rays of Bing's indefatigable cheer. "I'm so glad you were able to make it. Teaching isn't wearing you out, is it? Or maybe it is, I mean, I'm _sure_ it is—because it's such a commitment of mind _and_ soul—but also, I hope it's in a way that's good!"

He had missed Bing. He thought _sister_ , and just like always, it was something new and good and true, that hadn't always been his. "I love it, actually. Not sure if any of the students love _me_."

"Of course they do! You're both handsome _and_ intimidating! Thirty years from now someone will make a movie about your life-changing discussion of English lit. And I will _watch it_."

She tugged him inside and he was bombarded with greetings by his younger brothers—Cody and Levi, at least, since Mark was nowhere to be seen—and a quieter greeting from James.

It was a Thursday afternoon. He'd left a little earlier than usual, and driven upstate.

"We need you," Bing had said, over the phone. "And I bet you need us too."

He hadn't told _that_ part to Darcy, who had told him that he certainly should go. "Send them my love," she had said, and she had said it again when she left his morning, from under heavy-lidded eyes.

"You're too tired," he had said. "Can't you go in a little late?"

"Settlement conference. I'm sorry."

She said _sorry_ so much these days.

"Elijah."

"Hi, Mom." He hugged her. He'd hoped that she'd look happier here with Bing and James, away from the old gray house and away from Dad. All that seemed broken and small now, all those years of _Dad_ hanging over them like a wretched constant in a bleak universe. This was just—Mom. The last gray thing from the gray house.

"They're feeding me well," she confided, dark eyes bright and sharp. They'd always spoken a different language of glances, just the two of them. It still held up here, in new rooms and among old voices, but with Bing in place of Dad.

"Hope you're not giving them too much trouble," he retorted, straightening up.

"Trouble? Those two? They wouldn't know trouble if it hit them in the face."

Eli bit down on the injustice of that statement, because hell, he'd only just _arrived_ , and Bing was sweeping in with a stack of plates in one hand and a literal basket of muffins in the other. In typical hospitable fashion, the front door of Bing and James' house opened on the dining room.

"Tea-time!" she said. "Can I get you anything, Maggie?"

Eli raised his eyebrows at Mom. She shrugged. "What? Needed to have someone else calling me that, now that your father's not around."

Bing had set down the muffins on the dining table and backed quietly away. Being Bing, she probably sensed that there was a moment happening.

Eli asked, calmly and brutally, "Do you miss him?"

Mom's gaze didn't flicker from his. "Yes, I do."

"I don't," he said, but he shouldn't have said it. It was showing his hand.

Mom didn't even blink. "Yes, you do."

Dad, last Eli had heard, was living his best life out in Buffalo. He'd taken the money and hadn't looked back. _He said it was temporary_ , James had promised, as though Eli had asked for that explanation.

James came in and Levi and Cody tumbled after him. Mark had to be called from some remote corner of the house while Bing served up golden butter to accompany the main course.

"You don't have a basement, do you?" Eli asked Bing, as Mark wandered in.

"No." Bing looked perplexed. "Why?"

"He used to dig for buried treasure in ours."

"So did _you_ ," Mark complained, slumping into the chair beside Eli. His glasses needed to be cleaned, and he needed a haircut. Such was the constant state of Mark. But Eli felt a sudden rush of fondness for the middle brother, the one who had never really liked him but who knew him all the same.

"Shall we say grace?" Bing asked brightly. With other people, their brightness was hard-edged, the way that a shard of glass caught light more distinctly than the flat of a mirrored plane. Bing was anything but that.

Eli expected a good deal of grumbling from his heathen family, but apparently this was a commonplace occurrence in the James-Bing household. Everyone—even Mom—joined hands and Eli wished that Darcy was there to see him putting in an effort when it came to matters spiritual.

They ate; they talked. Nobody could ever say that Bennetts weren't good at talking. After the muffins had been thoroughly demolished, Bing waved Eli into the kitchen. "Will you be the best brother-in-law in the world and help me with the dishes?"

At the sink, she handed him a dish towel apologetically. "I'm sorry. I just wanted to talk with you privately. I didn't mean to press you into service like—like a sailor."

"I'm afraid we've sworn to an irrevocable pact of piracy," Eli said, very gravely. Bing giggled, then frowned a little.

"How is she?"

He swallowed. Should he sugarcoat it? But no, that would not be just—it would only be an attempt to protect Bing's good opinion of _him_ , since she obviously believed that Eli was doing Darcy good.

Bing waited.

Finally, Eli managed to say _something_. "She's like a ghost," he said, not quite able to keep an edge of desperation from creeping in. "And I don't know what to do."

Bing barely paused to rinse the suds off her hands before she was hugging him, standing on tiptoe to pull his head down on her shoulder. "Eli," she whispered, "I know she seems more like an idea than a human, but she's a grown-up. Sometimes we just have to let her go."

He drew back so that they could look each other in the eye. "How far _will_ she go?"

Bing took a deep breath, like a swimmer readying for a shivering plunge. "As far as she to." She shook her head. "I know. She's insane. But she's—I mean, did either of us really _choose_ to love her?"

Eli huffed a faint laugh. "No, actually. It just happened."

"Exactly." Bing turned back to the soapsuds. "Loving Darcy is inevitable. Saving Darcy is what you have to keep choosing to do." She pointed at Eli, and he felt like he'd been marked by God or something. "She loves you," she said. "More than she knows yet. And she already knows that she loves you a lot."

"Everything OK in here?" James was poking his head in.

Eli nodded, scooping up a plate to dry. "Yup. How about you?"

"They still get crumbs everywhere." But it was obvious from his grin that he didn't really mind.

Mostly, then, it was a good day. He left in the evening, because he knew Darcy wasn't coming home tonight. He'd made her promise.

When he said his goodbyes to Mom, they were alone. She was in her room—first floor, with a bed and bookshelf and a window that wasn't all yellow with age and grime. It was a nice room.

"So." She stared him down like it was a challenge. "You're off again."

He bit his lip. It hurt. "Yeah, Mom. I am."

They didn't say anything more for a while. Eli's pulse was pumping in his throat.

Mom smoothed her hands over her bent knees. "I am not going to ask you."

"You don't have to," Eli said. "I already know, Mom. I've always known."

"And you used to want it to happen, too. You used to promise me. Do you remember that?"

Eli dug his nails into his palms. "Then why don't you just say it?"

Mom tipped her head back a little. She wasn't look at him. She wasn't looking at anything. "I don't want your pity. I've never wanted your pity. You're the only of one us that ended up pretty sane, you know? The rest of them are so stupid. Even James. He and that pretty child are going to spend the rest of their lives pouring themselves out for people."

Eli ground his teeth. "Some people call that love."

"Yeah," said Mom, and she laughed a little. "Yeah, Elijah. That's what it _is_. Sucks, doesn't it?"

He thought of Darcy, almost falling into his arms last night, white with exhaustion. Darcy loved him, and it was tearing her apart. But Fitz told him—and Bing told him—that it was good, it was better this way. That Darcy needed him.

 _More than she knows yet_ , Bing had said.

"I should go," he said, like an act of mercy given by oneself to oneself accomplished anything.

"Yes," Mom murmured. "You should."


End file.
